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AlVIERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 



AMERICAN 
FOREIGN POLICY 

BY A DIPLOMATIST 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1909 



1 



COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published October iqoq 



CI.A257 2H 



PREFACE 

It is no unmixed evil that the feeling 
of confidence in the limitless extent of the 
country's resources and in its economic 
self-sufficiency should lately have been 
shaken. So long as an apparently bound- 
less horizon extended before us, we moved 
on a plane different from the rest of the 
world and indifferent thereto. To-day, 
when for the first time we are beginning 
to understand that our natural resources are 
limited, that the end of the nation's possi- 
bilities for internal development is almost 
within sight, and that its capacity of con- 
sumption has been unable to keep pace with 
its production, the necessity of providing 
foreign markets for our industry is increas- 
ingly felL Accompanying this has come 
the realization of the need for a navy suf- 
ficiently powerful to protect our over-sea 



vi PREFACE 

commerce and our coast line, our policies 
in Latin America and our distant depend- 
encies in the Pacific. The country has at 
last realized the importance of a fleet as 
an insurance against war. It has still to 
be aroused to the necessity of an efficient 
diplomacy as an adjunct to the navy, both 
in the extension of our commerce and in- 
fluence abroad and in the preservation of 
peace while carrying out the national poli- 
cies. 

Hitherto our attainment to national great- 
ness has been unaccompanied by the cor- 
responding preparation in the public mind 
for a foreign policy conforming to the 
magnitude of the country's new respon- 
sibilities and the loftiness of its manifest 
destiny. American public opinion, only 
lately awakened to the importance of inter- 
course with other nations, has still to be 
trained to the consciousness of what it may 
rightly demand from diplomacy as an 
instrument for the nation's welfare. It 
remains weighted by the handicap of tradi- 



PREFACE vu 

tions which, though they have outlived their 
utility, have not yet lost their hold. The 
same process of renovation which, acting 
in industry, has borne us into the forefront 
of nations requires infusion into the mecha- 
nism of our foreign policy, in order to adapt 
it to the present and future exigencies of 
the Republic's international position. 

The purpose of these studies is to draw 
attention to the duty of diplomacy to fur- 
ther our foreign policy in different regions 
of the world, and to the conditions of 
national security upon which must rest its 
assertion. 

The Author. 

June, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Policy of Understandings . 1 

II. Relations with Europe. ... 30 

III. The Recognition of the Monroe 

Doctrine 56 

IV. The Latin Republics . . o . 77 
V. The Far East . . . o . . 105 

VI. The Near East 129 

VII. The Diplomatic Service and the 

State Department .... 157 

VIII. The Future of our International 

Position 183 



AMERICAN FOREIGN 
POLICY 



CHAPTER I 

THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 

Our prejudice against foreign alliances 
has been handed down as the tradition of 
a century, confirmed by the early diiBBcul- 
ties the Republic encountered. The result 
of the Revolution had been to withdraw the 
new federation from the orbit of European 
politics. The French fleet sailing from 
Yorktown cut the cord which linked us 
with the Old World, and we were left to 
pursue alone the destinies to which our 
position and our energies were to summon 
us. When the acquisition of Louisiana 
extended the nation's frontiers to the Pa- 
cific, our insular position towards Europe 
offered, save from Canada, no basis for 



2 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

attack, and we were freed from that dread 
of invasion never absent from the minds of 
continental statesmen. After the War of 
1812, our relations with other countries sub- 
sided to a calm level of platonic cordiality, 
interrupted only by outbursts of sympathy 
for the cause of liberty abroad, and hardly 
disturbed except for solicitude with regard 
to Cuba, Confederate attempts at securing 
foreign recognition, and, connected there- 
with. Napoleon the Third's abortive Mexi- 
can adventure. The attitude of aloofness 
we preserved toward the Old World re- 
mained practically unchanged for a cen- 
tury. Almost our only point of continuous 
contact came through the mass of emigrants 
who were speedily absorbed by the nation's 
phenomenal growth ; and apart from certain 
Irish efforts to draw us into Anglophobia, 
the foreign elements in the country have 
never, in matters of importance, attempted 
to influence our diplomacy with regard 
to their lands of origin. The nation was 
left to effect its internal evolution free from 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 3 

the consideration of problems of foreign 
policy, and in struggle only with itself. 

Where the very existence of a country is 
at stake, international relations, when they 
are not immediately threatening, appear 
of minor consequence. The long struggle 
leading up to the Civil War and the 
period of Reconstruction evolving from it 
had withdrawn our interest from abroad. 
Occupied by its industrial evolution, the 
internal development of the country, which 
required and consumed its remaining en- 
ergy, pointed to the West. For a century 
foreign intercourse rightly appeared to the 
nation to be of secondary importance. 
In these years when the material founda- 
tions of our present position were being 
laid, the diplomatic experience early dif- 
ficulties had given us came almost to be 
forgotten. Economically and politically, 
the nation's energies were all engaged and 
absorbed in other directions. 

To the outbreak of the Spanish War, we 
had little or no foreign danger to fear. In 



4 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

that critical first century of the Republic's 
development, the necessity for a national 
policy of isolation was manifestly dictated 
to our interests. Any other course would 
have enmeshed us in the European system 
of balances and obviously have hindered 
our expansion, even had it led to no more 
baneful result. The wisdom of this policy, 
which had impressed itself on the leaders 
of both parties, appeared to receive further 
consecration from the political testament of 
Washington. His counsel had been trans- 
mitted from generation to generation, im- 
pressive by the weight attached to his great 
name. That it was directed not against 
alliances, but against entangling alliances, 
came almost to be overlooked. 

Mr. Olney has justly observed in his 
acute analysis ^ of the Farewell Address 
that, correctly interpreted, it holds as true 
to-day as when delivered. Washington 
had founded his reasoning on our then 
feebleness as a nation and on our remote- 

* Atlantic Monthly y May, 1898, pp. 578 et seq. 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 5 

ness in distance and in interest from events 
of a strictly European order. He had said, 
to quote again oft-repeated words : — 

"Europe has a set of primary interests, 
which to us have none, or a very remote 
relation. . . . Our detached and distant 
situation invites and enables us to pursue 
a different course. ... It is our true 
policy to steer clear of permanent alliances 
with any portion of the foreign world. . . . 
Taking care always to keep ourselves, by 
suitable establishments, on a respectable 
defensive posture, we may safely trust to 
temporary alliances for extraordinary emer- 
gencies." 

Three things ensue from this. While 
we were to abstain from all participation 
or interference in the internal affairs of 
Europe on account of our remote relation 
thereto, no mention is made of the rest of 
the world. It may be argued that the 
future of other continents did not present 
itself as of importance to Washington's 
mind. But even if this assumption were 



6 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

true, are we to allow a prescriptive force 
to govern our attitude toward questions 
ignored by our first President when he had 
carefully limited the application of his ad- 
vice to specific conditions ? Secondly, while 
our remoteness invited a certain line of 
policy, the need for this once ended, it is 
presumable that our policy would likewise 
change in conformity to new requirements. 
Lastly, he advocated in the clearest un- 
mistakable terms the expediency of tem- 
porary alliances for extraordinary emergen- 
cies. Indeed, who could have been more 
sensible to the fact that without a foreign 
alliance our national independence would 
hardly have been established ? 

The marvelous expansion of the country 
during the last century appears to have 
amply justified the success of all its policies. 
But there is an unearned increment even 
in statecraft. The force of impact of the 
huge moving mass upon the American 
continent has perhaps gained more for us 
than any foresight of statesmanship. In 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 7 

the presence of such diplomatic problems 
as we have hitherto had to solve, the wis- 
dom or error of a few has been of second- 
ary importance. The country's prosperity 
has been built on the solid rock of common 
effort rather than on the individual genius 
of statesmen. Save perhaps with Lincoln, 
its destinies have never been intimately tied 
with those of any single man. This result, 
while it has firmly established the founda- 
tions of the nation's welfare by making 
them largely independent of governmental 
action, has not been without drawbacks 
of another order. Little obvious as these 
were so long as we remained within an in- 
sular wall, they became manifest the day 
of our emergence from political seclusion. 

We had rejoiced in isolation without 
realizing that the strength we were acquir- 
ing was destined to outgrow its limitations, 
and that almost unconsciously we were 
laying the foundation upon which the 
future assertion of our foreign policy was 
to rest. The accumulation of wealth ap- 



8 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

peared to be the nation's principal interest. 
Politically and economically, the aloofness 
which had shielded our infancy, after hav- 
ing been its protection, was beginning to 
prove an obstacle to further development. 
Yet, paradoxically, we failed to appreciate 
the importance of Ihe change which brought 
our isolation to an end. 

The training of our public life had for a 
century been that of domestic politics. The 
complications of international relations 
with their new responsibilities flashed al- 
most as a revelation before the entire nation, 
which found itself on the morrow of the 
Spanish War in the presence of problems 
as novel as they were unforeseen. Without 
realizing either their gravity or their solu- 
tion, we have since approached these with 
calm confidence, a loftiness of purpose char- 
acteristic of our highest political ideals. 
We have given in Cuba, and are giv- 
ing now in the Philippines, an example of 
national altruism that history has not often 
paralleled. The remembrance of our own 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 9 

past security has caused us, however, to 
consider the problems they present less in 
their relation to us than in our relation to 
them, and to devote correspondingly less 
solicitude to the diplomatic and military 
exigencies imposed by our dependencies 
in order to forestall the possibility of later 
humiliation. Our former weakness had 
proved our strength. The conquests of 
our strength and our fortune have now be- 
come our weakness. 

By the acquisition of the Philippines we 
have assimilated the conditions of our pos- 
session to those of other nations holding 
Asiatic colonies. Beyond this the occu- 
pation of the archipelago affects the asser- 
tion of our influence elsewhere, curtailing 
the independence of what would otherwise 
have been an exclusively American policy 
by holding in view the special requirements 
of our Asiatic position. From a diplomatic 
and military standpoint, the possession of 
these dependencies is beyond question such 
a source of weakness that it may well be 



10 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

asked if a public opinion with higher po- 
litical training would ever have voluntarily 
assumed the responsibility of their acquisi- 
tion, had it been aware of its veritable im- 
port. But even a greater weakness, when 
considered in the light of similar deficien- 
cies shared by other powers, is far from 
being without remedy if we do not volun- 
tarily deprive ourselves thereof. 

Emerging from a century's isolation, we 
find ourselves at the threshold of a new 
era with two roads before us. The one 
supposedly traditional in its character coun- 
sels us to rely entirely upon our unaided 
resources, to be strong in the conscious- 
ness of our might as well as of that right 
which every nation arrogates as peculiar 
to itself. This policy appeals on the sur- 
face to the manliness of the nation. Car- 
ried to its logical conclusion it might be 
practical, but at what sacrifice! A triumph 
of militarism would be the only effective 
means by which we could assure the safe- 
guarding of our pretensions and over-sea 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 11 

possessions. Should our ambitions ever 
clash against those of a state equal to us in 
sea power, that had adopted the principle 
of the nation in arms, we could successfully 
oppose it only at the same cost. Even 
greater sacrifices would be necessary on 
our part, since other nations could rely 
under certain conditions on the aid of allies, 
from which we should presumably be de- 
barred. In any measure short of an enor- 
mous increase in armed strength, so great 
that no nation or coalition would wish to 
risk the challenge of our titles, lies dan- 
ger ahead. A traditional policy inevitably 
means for us a military policy. 

Statesmanship is, above all, guidance in 
economy of effort. To adjust the require- 
ments of a national policy in conformity 
with its resources, to see that no greater 
effort is called for than may be necessary 
to accomplish a given result, is its method. 
Armed strength is certainly the foundation 
of our security, and to neglect it would be 
to incur greater risk. But while a nation's 



12 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

safety is purchased only at the price of 
constant vigilance and preparation, there 
is a limit even to this. Our strength, how- 
ever great, is only relative — proportionate 
neither to the magnitude of our ambitions 
nor to the defenselessness of our foreign 
policies. 

Any undue increase in armaments such 
as would be necessary to guarantee us 
against all dangers presents two serious 
disadvantages. It is costly, especially in a 
country without conscription, where mili- 
tary expenditure already meets with mili- 
tant opposition. It further conduces to 
rivalry on the part of other nations. More- 
over, any sudden or unlimited increase 
would hardly be in tenor with our repeated 
declarations of peaceful intentions. Yet 
such is the force of an outworn tradition 
that its alternative, or rather its supple- 
ment, has hardly been considered. Diplo- 
matic means of defense exist as potent as 
military, and the presence of an ally's fleets 
may preserve our own from action. The 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 13 

choice lies before the nation : either we must 
maintain as many troops in the Philip- 
pines as our military advisers judge neces- 
sary against all contingencies, and provide 
as many battleships to guard the oceans 
which encircle us as our naval advisers 
deem indispensable, or we must consider 
the advisability of other measures. Com- 
plete isolation from the world's affairs on 
a nation's part is warranted only by ex- 
treme feebleness or confident strength. The 
fruit of recent victories has now deprived 
us of former invulnerability. National great- 
ness has not been achieved without the peril 
of novel responsibilities. We find ourselves 
exposed to danger both in our South Ameri- 
can pretensions and in our Oriental posses- 
sions, yet without diplomatic recognition 
of the first, or allies to aid in protecting 
the second. It is possible that our strength 
permits us to dispense with both. But for 
a peaceful nation we may rely too much on 
battleships, and not enough on diplomacy. 
The most striking development in mod- 



14 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

ern diplomacy has been the vast extension 
given within quite recent times to the sys- 
tem of arrangements and understandings 
which now link together the nations of 
Europe. These differ radically from the 
eighteenth-century idea of alliances, which 
were mainly offensive in purpose even 
when restricted in their liability. The new 
conception, on the contrary, is eminently 
pacific in character, and limited in appli- 
cation to comparatively narrow ends. It 
aims within certain determined regions 
to preserve actual conditions and to elimi- 
nate possible causes of conflict, chiefly in 
colonial spheres, by taking cognizance of 
the special or mutual interests of the powers 
concerned, and lending to the preservation 
of such agreements the force that is derived 
by cooperation of effort. 

There is reasonable certainty to-day that 
Europe will never again witness such a 
coalition as once annihilated Poland. In 
fact, the dread of spoliation has given rise 
to this system of mutual insurance. The 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 15 

European powers, confronted with greater 
difficulties than our own, and, perhaps, 
possessing more ancient experience in the 
handling of foreign affairs, have founded 
their security on mutual guarantees in- 
tended to preserve policies of common in- 
terest. Even Japan, the last comer in the 
comity of nations, has in recent years been 
too painfully reminded of the absence of 
similar precautions not to welcome the 
first opportunity of preventing its recur- 
rence. For us it may also become advisable 
to consider the adoption of a foreign policy 
upon a non-partisan basis, upon broader 
foundations than would have been war- 
ranted by our former position, and in 
greater conformity with actual necessities. 
We are still somewhat unused to consider- 
ing questions of this order in their world- 
wide aspects. Our situation as a great 
nation has been established by the logic of 
facts, and without the corresponding intel- 
lectual preparation, so impotent when it 
does not possess the material foundation 



16 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

for greatness. Circumstances have placed 
us in the forefront of world powers. But 
our position has been achieved almost too 
easily. We have not experienced the dis- 
cipline of adversity which has schooled 
other great states. We have not felt the 
need for caution in our acts of international 
significance. We have gone ahead almost 
without a policy other than the Monroe 
Doctrine and our traditional non-entan- 
glement. At the present juncture, even 
though the benefits of our new importance 
are mainly apparent, and we rightly look 
forward with confident hope to the future, 
it may be advisable for a prudent state- 
craft to take cognizance of the possibility of 
shoals in the course that lies before us. Our 
diplomacy ought to concern itself with the 
preparation of a policy which will enable 
us, so far as human foresight can foretell, 
to escape such perils while pursuing our 
destiny as a great nation. 

The past has brought us into contact 
with the Old World both in its collective 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 17 

form as an aggregate of states and with 
the individual European powers. In the 
formulation of any policy the experience of 
history cannot be disregarded, and we have 
to bear in mind the nature of the dan- 
ger which may beset us. The continental 
nations have always inclined, when their 
contemplated action lay outside Europe, to 
collective manifestations, as being of a 
nature to diminish their risk and increase 
their force, while protecting them from 
danger behind. We have witnessed the 
effects of such concerted action against 
Japan, robbed at Port Arthur of the prize 
of victory over China. We have seen it 
operating with varying success against 
Turkey. We have heard its rumblings, 
however faint, even against ourselves. The 
very admission that this peril may con- 
ceivably exist means that we cannot with 
impunity disinterest ourselves from Euro- 
pean politics. The future possibility of a 
concert of powers can never leave us indif- 
ferent. More than ever our new depend- 



18 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

encies make us vulnerable and offer pawns 
for possible enemies to take from us. 

American diplomacy can have no more 
important mission than that of guarding 
against this danger, which would be brought 
about by the hegemony of one state over 
others in banding them together for a com- 
mon purpose. The first principles of our 
policy demand that we view with disfa- 
vor the efforts of any power to assert its 
own predominant superiority over weaker 
neighbors. A coalition becomes dangerous 
when it is guided by a single power. When 
nations enter upon a strictly equal footing 
their efforts are too often at variance to be 
easily effective. American diplomacy has 
a definite scope before it in exercising 
watchfulness against the occurrence of such 
a peril. Nor is our solicitude exclusively 
political. We should remember what a 
European commercial union, advocated by 
many foreign statesmen and economists, 
would mean for us. Even if such union 
were without apparent or immediate po- 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 19 

litical scope, its formation, directed mainly 
against our trade, would create for America 
a most serious peril : German customs unity 
preceded German political unity. 

Yet neither hostile alliance nor coalition 
need alarm us so long as we do not volun- 
tarily cripple ourselves by ignoring the 
means at our command to resist these. 
This does not imply the necessity for action 
on our part in events of a strictly European 
order. The disappearance of Dutch inde- 
pendence, if so unfortunate an event were 
ever to take place, would, for instance, be 
keenly regretted by us, but, except for the 
fate of Holland's colonies, it would not 
warrant our intervention. Still less would 
any concern we might feel in the ultimate 
disposition of Austria be likely to justify 
military action on our part. The diplo- 
matic solicitude we have in Europe is and 
should remain that of spectators. But our 
interests are now too widely spread to 
permit us longer to disinterest ourselves 
from any concerted action of the powers, 



20 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

with its almost inevitable extra-European 
ramifications. 

It is only a short step for European influ- 
ence to extend beyond the Continent and 
enter into spheres which concern us as well. 
The line to draw is indeed far more subtle 
than may at first appear. History bears 
witness that in diplomacy unimportant 
beginnings have often unexpected conse- 
quences. It is to guard against unpleasant 
surprises of this nature that we should 
neglect no opportunity in identifying our 
action with that of the European states. 
The more we assert the equality of our rights 
and responsibilities with theirs, the more we 
make felt our legitimate influence in the 
councils of nations, the less likelihood will 
there be of the formation of any coalition, 
commercial or political, in opposition to 
our interests. Political movements possess 
in themselves an organic growth, and such 
future danger as may exist for us could more 
easily acquire head by our aloofness at the 
time of its inception than by our opposition 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 21 

thereto. Its maturity would present for us 
greater peril than its infancy. Nor if we 
act prudently need we ever feel ourselves 
alone in resisting it. Europe, even under its 
present cover of friendliness toward us, con- 
tains many conflicting interests, and certain 
of these would normally be favorable to 
our policy. 

We can hardly suppose, however, that 
the extension unavoidably taken by our 
diplomacy will not encounter resistance. 
No power can hope to be successful with- 
out incurring the antagonism of others, 
even though our own peaceful proclivities 
should preclude us from the former rapa- 
cious ambitions of Old World states. But 
whatever future struggles await us, we can- 
not forget that diplomacy, like war, may 
achieve for us victories or defeats. How- 
ever powerful we may become, a combina- 
tion may array against us power as great. 
The burden of our weight, on whichever 
side of the scales we incline, will inevitably 
be counterpoised. Even more it will lead 



22 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

almost inevitably to fresh distributions of 
strength. While the present grouping of 
triple "entente" and triple alliance, each 
reenforced by subsidiary aids, may not 
prove everlasting, it is likely to provide the 
basis upon which such new accretions will 
form. Yet even future combinations need 
not concern us. The balancing of strength 
is no menace of war. On the contrary, 
the distribution of liability in such an 
event among several nations is the most 
certain guarantee of peace. 

Bellicose tendencies are far more likely 
to exist in a single nation than where several 
are allied together, and modern alliances 
tend either to act in the direction of peace, 
or else to limit the scene of conflict. The 
recent Russo-Japanese War affords the 
best example of how the efforts of Great 
Britain and France, in spite of their respec- 
tive alliances to each of the contestants, 
succeeded in isolating the field of hostilities. 

As for the argument that our present 
strength is sufficient, examples are not want- 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 23 

ing of states with fleets and armies greater 
than our own who feel that the interests of 
peace would best be preserved by a policy 
of understandings. England, with a sea 
force far superior to ours, has looked to 
diplomacy to aid her navy in guarding the 
British Empire. Allied with Japan, an- 
other understanding links her with France, 
while in the event of war her fleets can 
make use of Portugal's unrivaled strategic 
position in the South Atlantic in return for 
guaranteeing the latter's colonial posses- 
sions. Diplomacy has been used by Eng- 
land as an adjunct to naval strength, and 
her policy has neglected no step to further 
secure the safeguard of India as the pivot 
of the British Empire. By these alliances, 
culminating in the recent agreement with 
Russia, she has guarded every avenue of 
approach to her great colony. It may be 
urged that England's exposed position ne- 
cessitates such precautions. But has she 
any possession more vulnerable than are 
the Philippines ? 



J 



24 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

The colonial position of France more 
closely resembles our own. With depend- 
encies situated at great distance from the 
home country, she had felt herself unable 
to protect these in the event of certain con- 
tingencies. In spite of the lengthy period 
of Anglophobia occasioned by colonial ri- 
valry through which she had passed, her 
diplomacy effected an understanding with 
Great Britain. France by this means ob- 
tained a protection for her dependencies 
greater than her fleet could give. To this 
she has added a further guarantee. The 
defenselessness of Indo-China and the feel- 
ing that it lay at the mercy of Japan had 
been the first lesson of the late war to im- 
press her. Without slighting the suscepti- 
bilities of her Russian ally, France has been 
able to negotiate an agreement with Japan 
guaranteeing each other's possessions in the 
Far East. 

After these examples of nations pos- 
sessing colonies, yet supplementing their 
powers of defense by the aid of other states, 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 25 

we may consider the conditions in which a 
similar understanding would be advisable 
for the United States. The problem pre- 
sents itself of finding a desirable partner 
willing to enter into a well-defined mutual 
insurance, with whom no conflicting inter- 
ests are likely to clash. Our old prejudice 
against alliances had Europe in view, and 
to-day, as in the past, any treaty or pact 
which would entangle us in the internal 
affairs of the Old World would be con- 
demned. But it is difficult to see the inex- 
pediency of an arrangement which, without 
adding a ship to our fleet, or a dollar to our 
expenditure, would restrict the nation's 
liability to the American continent and 
the islands of the Pacific, in return for 
guaranteeing the status quo from Maine to 
Manila; which would effectively protect 
the Monroe Doctrine and the Panama 
Canal, and safeguard the integrity of our 
dependencies, and in removing the Pa- 
cific from the sphere of political change 
would assure us the sovereignty of the 



26 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Philippines for such eventual disposition 
as the American people deem fit to make. 
Can it be doubted that an understanding of 
this nature would immeasurably strengthen 
our position and our policies, and be a 
further guarantee for the preservation of 
peace ? 

The price to pay for these benefits would 
be too heavy if we should be dragged as the 
result into a continental conflagration, and 
obliged to take sides in a struggle between 
the nations of Europe. But the conse- 
quence of our understanding with either 
of the interested parties, in the event of 
its being engaged in a European conflict, 
would almost certainly be to restrict and 
limit the seat of hostilities by removing the 
Amej'ican continent, and such parts of the 
Pacific as might be included within its 
scope, from the field of operations. The 
alternative is obvious. If any hostile power 
chose to disregard our warning and chal- 
lenge our ally within the bounds which we 
had declared should be removed from the 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 27 

scene of conflict, the clearest dictates of 
self-preservation would impel us to take 
arms for a cause which would then become 
our own. But this contingency is almost 
too improbable to mention. 

Such an understanding would thus be 
of an essentially peaceful nature, tending 
only to preserve existing conditions by re- 
moving all motive for their disturbance. 
In contracting it, we should be entering into 
a mutual insurance limited by the terms of 
the agreement, which would conceivably 
restrict its provisions to the guarantee of 
actual conditions within the lines of lon- 
gitude embracing the American continent 
and the Pacific. Providing, therefore, the 
nation or nations with which such under- 
standing had been entered into were suf- 
ficiently powerful, we need feel no concern 
for the future of the Philippines, the safety 
of the Panama Canal, or the continuance 
of the Monroe Doctrine. And while re- 
spect for the latter may be obtained by 
different means, the security of our Asiatic 



28 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

possessions can hardly be assured by any 
other feasible method. 

As an American power and as an Asiatic 
power, we have to deal with other American 
and Asiatic powers, considering these in the 
light of possible friends or adversaries with 
the consequences attached to each con- 
tingency. It is the province of statesman- 
ship to sort the threads of our interests and 
to see wherein these lie parallel with theirs, 
and, where they may be dissimilar, to en- 
deavor in times of national calm to adjust 
causes of friction. The practical advan- 
tages of such a process of diplomatic house- 
cleaning have been witnessed in the recent 
agreements effected by Great Britain with 
France and Russia. Their differences have 
now been reconciled. Their diplomatic 
work has been a labor of peace, and 
the danger of war, which for so long 
appeared imminent, has been removed. 
Diplomacy has given the lie to the ** in- 
evitable conflict" so long foreshadowed be- 
tween these states, and spared each nation 



THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDINGS 29 

concerned its treasure and its blood, making 
of former enemies present friends. 

We have a far easier task. Yet although 
no such differences or ambitions divide 
us from other powers, causes of friction lie 
not far away. But partly out of respect for 
a tradition that has survived its utility, 
partly because of still other reasons, we 
have not availed ourselves of the diplo- 
matic advantages at hand in fortifying our 
position. We have not utilized the power 
of diplomacy and made of it a veritable 
instrument to strengthen national policies. 
It still lies before us as a peaceful means 
to forestall the danger of war and remove 
the causes of national concern. 



CHAPTER II 

RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 

We had so long been regarded as a 
peaceful republic, occupied solely by trade, 
that Europe was startled by our victory 
over Spain to realize that we possessed 
ambitions similar to those which for cen- 
turies had spurred on her peoples to assert 
their influence beyond the seas. It is only 
half correct, however, to say that the war 
caused our advent as a world power. It 
inaugurated a new period less than it has- 
tened the development of a growing move- 
ment in American national evolution which 
by its means attained to earlier maturity, 
but which must in any event have sooner or 
later made itself felt. 

Certain causes would inevitably have 
terminated our period of former isolation. 
The extension given to our commercial in- 
terests abroad had already for some time 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE SI 

aroused keener interest in the world's af- 
fairs. So long as American export trade 
formed but a relatively small proportion of 
the country's industrial production we were 
economically independent in our seclusion. 
When foreign commerce, however, assumed 
an importance which has lately amounted 
to over three thousand million dollars an- 
nually, any curtailment in its volume meant 
serious injury to our industry. Yet the 
closer interest we now feel in the world's 
affairs has been brought about, not so much 
by the desire to enlarge our trade and the 
pressure of material stakes as by the higher 
consciousness of new responsibilities. 

Whereas formerly we accepted without 
compunction, in questions of international 
interest, the benefits of other powers' exer- 
tions without ourselves incurring corre- 
sponding liabilities, the nation's sense of 
dignity has at last been awakened to this 
impropriety, and can never again relapse in 
such matters to its former callousness. The 
relief of the legations at Pekin has demon- 



32 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

strated our readiness to participate in affairs 
of joint concern to civilized states. 

Except for Great Britain, the result of 
the Spanish War had been little welcome 
to the rest of Europe, grown accustomed 
to the thought that the destinies of the 
universe should forever be in the hands of 
five or six of its states. The nations of 
Europe have been aptly compared by M. 
^ d'Haussonville to a party of gamblers 
seated around a green cloth grown some- 
what shabby with age, where each in turn 
takes the bank. A newcomer enters, his 
pockets bulging with gold, and startles 
the players into a fear that he may at once 
break the bank. 

In destroying the time-worn conception 
as to the exclusive supremacy of Europe we 
appeared as intruders, and as such were un- 
welcome. But this resentment has partly 
disappeared since the more recent victory 
of Japan made the Old World recover from 
its first surprise. The Continent recog- 
nized that our appearance might offer com- 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 33 

pensations in neutralizing the new power of 
the East, and viewed our recent Japanese 
diifficulties with thinly veiled satisfaction. 
Our single entry as a great nation had for 
a time overturned all former calculations 
and shifted the axis of power. But offset 
by Japan, the scales are only more heavily 
weighted than before, and the fulcrum has 
been set back where it was, though the 
balance is less delicately adjusted. Change 
has come through the enlargement of what 
had been a restricted horizon to its present 
globe-embracing proportions. A concert 
of world powers has dispossessed the con- 
cert of Europe. 

While the European nations are rapidly 
adapting their diplomacy to conform with 
the new requirements, we have emerged 
from our former aloofness handicapped by 
the weight of a traditional policy no longer 
in touch with actual conditions. Brought 
up to respect the wisdom of non-entangle- 
ment in the affairs of Europe, we now find 
ourselves called upon to assume our place 



34 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

as a world power, yet unable to separate 
the international position of foreign states 
from their strictly European position, or to 
forget that the general interests of civilized 
nations are likewise in great measure the 
interests of Europe. Our attitude toward 
such countries must be related to our colo- 
nial situation, and it may even vary accord- 
ing as their over-sea policy affects our own. 
Foreign relations have grown for us in com- 
plexity, and our requirements have ceased 
to bear the same uniform hall-mark of 
simplicity in every region of the globe. We 
must scan more critically the movements 
and the ambitions of other states, without 
being able as before to disinterest ourselves 
therefrom. The vital interests of each of 
the great European powers concern us in 
relation to our policy. 

To begin with a sister republic, tradition 
and sympathy cause us to regard France 
as the most ancient of our friends, to whom 
we have been bound by a debt of gratitude 
not yet forgotten. Our friendship toward 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 35 

her rests on a solid basis, nor are conflicting 
ambitions likely again to clash between us. 
As an American power, France's posses- 
sions, of slight consequence and far scat- 
tered from the St. Lawrence to Guiana, 
are mainly of historical importance ; but as 
Asiatic powers, the interests of the two 
republics are similar. Even economically 
there is little reason to anticipate between 
the two nations that acute commercial 
rivalry which so often precedes political 
difficulties. The active participation of 
France in the world's affairs is now con- 
fined to a role of peace. There is slight 
probability of her ever again seeking to pur- 
sue the course of aggression that so often 
made her in the past the disturbing factor 
in Europe. With reason, therefore, may we 
look to the future continuance of our an- 
cient friendship. 

From having been the most warlike, 
France has in recent years become the most 
peaceful of states. Her former policies of 
adventure have been definitely dismissed, 



36 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

and like another and greater Holland she 
has subsided into a rich capitalist nation, 
farming out her millions for others more 
active to employ profitably. Since the war 
of 1870 her colonial policy has been dic- 
tated less by need for expansion than 
through fear on the part of her statesmen 
lest their country be outdistanced in the 
future, if new national interests were not 
created beyond the seas. Successful in 
this field, her colonial enterprise, save in 
North Africa, is no longer aggressive. 

France has ceased to be a menace to any 
state. But her continental position im- 
poses upon her a certain policy. Lying 
between two powerful neighbors, the choice 
had become necessary between accept- 
ing the consequences of naval inferiority 
toward Great Britain and military inferior- 
ity toward Germany. Friendship with the 
one power meant a guarantee for her colo- 
nial empire in the event of war, but at the 
risk of invasion; friendship with the other 
meant inviolability of territory, but the al- 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 37 

most certain loss of colonies in case of such 
a contest. 

Her feeling of resentment toward Ger- 
many had been greatly lessened in recent 
years. The sting of bitterness caused by 
the remembrance of lost provinces, if not 
forgotten, was at least relegated to the rear 
by the more recent smart of national humil- 
iation suffered at Fashoda. Counsels were 
therefore divided as to what policy to adopt, 
when the events which led to the Moroc- 
can Conference demonstrated that France 
could secure the Emperor's friendship only 
by unreservedly accepting German hege- 
mony. And however great the anxiety to 
insure the safety of her eastern frontier, 
French patriotism revolted at accepting a 
situation which would have forced the 
nation to acquiesce in the position of 
an inferior power definitely submissive to 
German policy. Hence the understanding 
with^England, at first of strictly colonial 
interest, afterward assumed a new and un- 
expected importance, the significance of 



38 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

which recent developments have further 
augmented. 

While France to-day seeks only to pre- 
serve her present possessions, Germany is 
too lately born among great nations to have 
enjoyed the inheritance of older states. 
Hitherto her efforts to colonize have not 
been altogether successful, and her foreign 
dependencies remain far inferior to those of 
even small powers like Holland or Portugal. 
With a rapidly growing population ill con- 
fined within the present frontiers, and con- 
fronted by grave social problems, she aims 
to follow the example of her neighbors in 
securing outlets for over-sea trade and enter- 
prise. But while other great powers have 
reached a stage where they are content to 
develop what is theirs, Germany feels that 
she has not yet reached her full measure, nor 
has her national energy attained its zenith. 
She seeks a position where she will be able 
to demand participation in, or compensa- 
tion for, any alteration or change in existing 
territorial conditions, in whatever quarter 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 89 

of the globe it occurs ; and to prepare for 
this the same careful labor is to-day going 
on in the German navy as took place in 
the Prussian army after the defeat of Jena. 
Will a united Germany care to wait fifty 
years to witness results ? Success engen- 
ders the wish for success, and the remem- 
brance of past victories has been too vivid 
not to spur on future hope. 

Such ambitions as Germany may cher- 
ish are accompanied by armaments of a 
nature which not unnaturally cause solici- 
tude among neighbors at whose expense 
they would be carried out. However unfair 
it would be to criticise her for an efficiency 
which her neighbors may envy, which has 
proved the reason for her past success, and 
the burden of which concerns her alone, it 
would be unwise to fail to appreciate its 
consequences. Her deficiency in sea power 
alone prevents her from wielding the same 
world power which she enjoys as a conti- 
nental state, and to remedy this Germany's 
present efforts are strained. Her imme- 



40 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

diate goal is not the acquisition of a para- 
mount naval position, which she knows 
herself unable under existing conditions to 
wrest from Great Britain, but the bringing 
about of a state of armed peace on sea, as 
on land, which would terminate the latter's 
supremacy. The policy of armed peace 
has made Germany the dominant force on 
the Continent since 1870, and her success- 
ful pursuit of a similar condition on the 
high seas would no longer render hopeless 
a possible naval contest with Great Britain. 
German naval policy to-day aims so to 
enlarge her present fleet as to make it, even 
single-handed, a dangerous adversary, while 
it would always constitute the nucleus of 
a possible array of forces which might be 
marshaled against a common foe. The con- 
ception is Napoleonic in spirit. Napoleon 
aimed to place himself at the head of a 
European confederation definitely submis- 
sive to his policy ; and German influence is 
to-day dominant not only in Austria, her 
avowed ally, but in several of the smaller 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 41 

states of northern and eastern Europe. 
But her political allies, while strong in their 
military armaments, are crippled by an in- 
adequacy of sea power which would render 
their assistance of slight utility in the event 
of naval war. In order to fulfill her ambi- 
tion, Germany requires both to isolate her 
rival and to obtain the aid of a power able 
to prove of assistance to her on the sea. At 
the present time we are the nation best fitted 
to render her such services. Our resources 
and our naval strength would be of inesti- 
mable advantage to the emperor in a pos- 
sible war with England, and the cultivation 
of our friendship may well appear a desira- 
ble goal toward which his diplomacy should 
strive. 

The former vapors of conflict between 
Germany and ourselves are fortunately 
long since dissipated. Her supposed covet- 
ing of the Philippines after the battle of 
Manila was keenly resented by us. But the 
details of this episode would prove that her 
conduct, to which we then took exception. 



42 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

had been due to indiscretions for which she 
was in no way to blame. Her subsequent 
course has certainly been altogether loyal, 
and we have even had occasion to appreci- 
ate in regions of special interest to us the 
friendliness of her present diplomacy. All 
recollection of unpleasantness is happily 
effaced, and German official relations have 
more than oscillated to the extreme pole of 
friendship. This is eminently desirable, 
and so long as it does not cause us to forget 
vital interests, we can but gain by the pre- 
servation of the present fortunate cordiality. 
We cannot blind ourselves, however, to the 
fact that Germany desires our amity, in- 
spired by deeper motives than may appear 
on the surface. Even if our active aid could 
not be enlisted, to endeavor to detach us 
from other sympathies is legitimate diplo- 
macy on her part. From our standpoint, 
however, the benefits of any closer intimacy 
than at present exists would be hardly com- 
mensurate with the corresponding disad- 
vantages suffered in other quarters. The 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 43 

present cultivation of friendship with so 
great a power, and from whom we have 
much to learn, is to be earnestly desired, 
but any closer understanding with Germany 
would present for us too many obstacles to 
be enduring or advantageous. 

The preponderant influence of Germany 
in European affairs has been somewhat 
heightened by the temporary exclusion 
of Russia from her accustomed place in 
the councils of nations and her condemna- 
tion for the next few years to a rigid policy 
of internal development. The period of 
Muscovite aggression is over, for a time at 
least, and as a constitutional state she has 
settled with good grace to the acceptance 
of a new role of peace. Her recent under- 
standing with Great Britain, which brought 
to an end long-standing jealousies, was wel- 
come to us. We had no cause to desire the 
perpetuation of disputes between powers 
whose interests so closely resemble our own. 
In the past, amity with Russia has been 
a wise tradition in our diplomacy, and its 



44 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

continuance should prove an important fac- 
tor in our future European policy. The 
causes of friction that have lately arisen 
over questions of jurisdiction in Manchuria 
are of passing significance. It is unlikely 
that divergent interests of vital consequence 
will ever separate the two nations, while cir- 
cumstances are easily conceivable, in the 
extreme Orient, in which they could render 
each other mutual services. 

In addition to political considerations, 
our commercial interests cause us to desire 
a closer intimacy with Russia, whose Asiatic 
expansion, with its consequent needs, is not 
unlike our own winning of the West. In the 
struggle for the trade of the Near and Far 
East, and even in the development of Euro- 
pean Russia, numerous opportunities are 
likely to occur where Russian influence, un- 
able itself to profit, would incline to favor 
our enterprise in preference to that of other 
nations. 

With the remaining continental powers, 
apart from the extensive commercial rela- 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 45 

tions we have with them, the protection 
and development of which necessitate a 
more watchful diplomacy than is commonly 
supposed, our interest arises largely from 
their affiliations with Germany, or with the 
Dual Alliance, and Great Britain. While 
Austrian diplomacy has in recent years been 
increasingly subordinated to that of Berlin, 
Italian has steered a more independent 
course. The expression of fidelity to allies 
and loyalty to friends, so frequently invoked 
by succeeding Italian Ministers of Foreign 
Affairs in explanation of their country's for- 
eign policy, likewise characterizes its nature. 
The course of conciliatory opportunism in 
harmony with the country's welfare predi- 
cates for Italy a cordiality toward both sides 
which would tend to make for her neutrality 
in the event of war. This augurs well for 
the continuance of the many sympathies 
which unite us to Italy, whose ambitions 
are unlikely to forebode for us any unex- 
pected or unwelcome developments. 

At the present time, when every year 



46 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

witnesses a growth in the friendship ex- 
isting between Great Britain and ourselves, 
it may appear fanciful to speak of the pos- 
sibility of conflict between two kindred na- 
tions. But the recollection of a Venezuelan 
boundary dispute is not long enough re- 
moved to allow us to forget what might 
have occurred without Lord Salisbury's wise 
statesmanship. The efforts of the two gov- 
ernments to smooth all sources of trouble 
at a time like the present, when both nations 
are animated by the friendliest feelings, is a 
wise indication of the importance attached 
to such amity. 

Towards England the clearest dictates 
of reason impel us to turn, — not because of 
the intimate ties of language, blood, and civ- 
ilization, nor because the two nations have 
shared a common past. Bonds of sympathy 
and kinship have never prevented fratrici- 
dal strife ; where conflicting interests oppose 
they offer a poor foundation upon which to 
base an understanding. Identical interests 
undivided by divergent ambitions afford 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 47 

a far safer basis for friendship between 
nations. 

The most serious foreign danger which 
has menaced us in the past as a nation was 
the triumph of Napoleon over continental 
Europe. As Mr. Olney has remarked/ 
were his career ever again to approach or 
even to threaten repetition, not merely sen- 
timent and sympathy, but the strongest 
consideration of self-preservation and self- 
defense, might drive us to take sides. Had 
the power of England then been annihi- 
lated, it is unlikely that we would have at- 
tained our present greatness. Great Britain, 
though fighting us at sea, yet saved us from 
greater peril. Danger for her, just as dan- 
ger for us, lies in a coalition of powers, and, 
in consequence, British diplomacy has to 
oppose the combinations of Europe. For 
the past three centuries England's continu- 
ous policy has been to resist the efforts of 
any state to achieve a European hegemony 
or to assert a paramount influence. When 

» Atlantic Monthly, March, 1900, p. 298. 



48 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Spain was dominant she opposed her. A 
century later she fought Louis the Four- 
teenth, and alone she faced Napoleon, and 
later resisted Russia. Time and time again 
she has manifested her readiness to block 
any concert of powers directed toward an 
end distasteful to her. Canning barring the 
action of the Holy Alliance on the morrow 
of the Congress of Verona ; Palmerston re- 
fusing to unite with Napoleon the Third, 
eager to destroy our unity by aiding the 
South; Salisbury prepared to thwart any 
European coalition at the outbreak of the 
Spanish War, are so many illustrations in 
point. The aid England was ready to extend 
us during our recent war proved unneces- 
sary, since no hostile coalition attained ma- 
turity. But the fact that, had it been other- 
wise, the dictates of self-preservation would 
have compelled our acceptance thereof, just 
as we accepted the aid of France in the Re- 
volution, gives the lie to the reverence with 
which we still regard a misinterpreted tra- 
dition. Alliances can be entangling only 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 49 

when they are disadvantageous. To guard 
against their being so is the duty of a wise 
statesmanship. 

Without regarding any power as hostile, 
we cannot avoid the conclusion that only 
from England, from the Continent, or from 
Japan could serious danger menace us. 
While England as the mistress of the sea 
would be our most formidable adversary, 
she could also be our most useful friend, 
and her friendship is of as much importance 
to us as is ours to her. Mutual benefit or 
mutual injury would alike be greater than 
either could experience at the hands of 
other nations. While no incentive for hostil- 
ity exists on either side, with no other power 
would the advantages of an understanding 
be so great or the liabilities so small. Eng- 
land controls the key of the situation for 
us both toward the Continent and toward 
Japan. Under existing circumstances, were 
she unwilling, no power could menace us. 
Nor are such circumstances likely to alter 
so long as the Continent remains divided. 



50 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

To guard against this is the primary object 
of British diplomacy, and her present guar- 
antee against a united Europe lies in the 
understanding with France. What France 
is to England, England is to us. Hence the 
preservation of the Anglo-French under- 
standing, and in smaller degree the under- 
standing with Russia, concern us only a 
little less than the main participants. So 
long as these subsist the British navy is su- 
preme, and with our own maintained at such 
strength as to make us a formidable factor 
in the event of complications, we need fear 
no hostile coalition to menace our policies 
or our dependencies. Looking toward the 
Far East, Mr. Olney has reminded us that 
except for Great Britain's countenance we 
should almost certainly never have secured 
the Philippines.^ Her alliance with Japan, 
coupled with the consciousness of her naval 
supremacy, holds that power in restraint; 
while in China our policies are united in 
upholding the open-door principle. In every 
^ Atlantic Monthly y March, 1900, p. 300. 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 51 

region of the globe we find similarity in 
our political interests. And the reason is 
unquestionably because England, with the 
greatest colonial empire the world has yet 
witnessed, can seek only to preserve her 
birthright and not to expand further. Land- 
glutted, she desires to retain her present 
possessions without coveting the territories 
of others. 

The maintenance of that empire excites 
no jealousy in us, and presents no incon- 
venience. The Philippine experiment has 
allayed whatever lurking ambitions existed 
within us in the direction of colonial ex- 
pansion beyond the western hemisphere. 
While for better or for worse the nation's 
destinies must for an indefinite time be 
connected with our Oriental dependencies, 
we have no desire to enlarge such experi- 
ence. On the contrary, we should prefer to 
see the colonial markets of the world con- 
trolled by a state ready to throw them open 
to all comers. 

The problems of imperial responsibility 



52 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

for the acts of self-governing British colo- 
nies still remain to be solved ; but their in- 
tention to exclude the yellow races brings 
these close to a policy which must hence- 
forth be our own. In that as well lies the 
opportunity for future cooperation of mu- 
tual advantage. Lastly, we cannot forget 
that Canada is too integral a part of the 
American continent for its welfare not to 
be connected with our own. While this is 
not the place to enter into the problems, 
more intricate than vital, that still remain 
to be settled with our northern neighbor, it 
is obvious that the closer the ties binding 
us to the mother country, the easier will be 
their solution. Questions like those of the 
Newfoundland fisheries can never assume 
a violent form if the colonists realize that 
overt acts on their part will deprive them 
of their government's support. 

The furtherance of such a policy of close 
intimacy with Great Britain necessitates a 
frank exchange of view^s on all matters of 
common interest. But such understanding 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 53 

would have little in common with the nature 
of an alliance. It would base itself rather 
on the desire to settle outstanding ques- 
tions which have in the past been causes 
of friction, and further to unite in the mu- 
tual declaration of a policy of joint interest 
which would tend to perpetuate existing 
conditions, particularly in the Pacific, where 
our desires are identical. The fact that our 
policies would cause us to regard with dis- 
favor the effort of any nation to disturb 
present conditions within spheres of com- 
mon interest, does not imply that we should 
be drawn thereby into conflicts alien to us. 
Contact even with the Old World is not 
synonymous with entanglement, nor does 
entanglement of necessity mean war. Eng- 
land, which has continually mingled in con- 
tinental affairs, has yet since Waterloo gone 
through but one European war. Her efforts 
in the direction of her traditional policy are 
indeed more likely to be peacefully effective 
if our own approval thereof be well under- 
stood. The influence of the two great naval 



54 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

powers, already united by so many intimate 
ties, directed toward this end would more 
than in any other way strengthen the cause 
of peace. 

A guarantee on the part of the two coun- 
tries to maintain the present territorial and 
political conditions within certain deter- 
mined regions could hardly be viewed as 
an entangling alliance. It would rather be 
a pledge against war, since it would permit 
us to dispense with the unlimited extension 
of armaments otherwise necessary to defend 
our policies, while freeing England from 
anxiety with regard to her American colo- 
nies and uniting both nations in guaran- 
teeing the integrity of weaker neutral states. 
It would offer a permanent basis for our 
foreign policy worthy of our dignity as a 
great power. And if later, as a result of this, 
additional agreements and understandings 
tending to the preservation of certain de- 
sired conditions within definite spheres 
were to be contracted with other states simi- 
larly interested, these could hardly be re- 



RELATIONS WITH EUROPE 55 

garded as entangling us in the labyrinth 
of European politics, or otherwise than as 
bespeaking our sincere desire for peace and 
our determination to assist its preservation 
by diplomatic as well as by military means. 



CHAPTER III 

THE RECOGNITION OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

The external problems hitherto confront- 
ing the nation have been mainly of a sim- 
ple order. Since the birth of the Republic 
we have been spared the intricate questions 
of foreign policy that disturb the calm of 
European statesmen. Our diplomacy, after 
the remarkable success of its early efforts, 
brought to the consideration of interna- 
tional relations a directness of vision and of 
method, differing, perhaps, from that of a 
trained service, but not unsuited to accom- 
plish its end. With neither the glamour 
nor the brilliancy occasionally present 
among European diplomatists, our public 
men have for the most part treated foreign 
relations with the sterling sense and integ- 
rity of purpose characteristic of the best 
traditions in our government. 

So long as national conditions remained 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 57 

unaltered there was little necessity for 
change in method. Isolation afforded the 
best guarantee for our security, and the 
ocean provided an effectual barrier for possi- 
ble diplomatic shortcomings. The Spanish 
War, with the responsibilities it created, 
sharply marks the inauguration of a new 
era in the country's development, the impor- 
tance of which history will only accentuate. 
But nowhere have its effects been more 
marked and less realized than in our diplo- 
matic position. We have readily appre- 
ciated the difference made in our status 
from a colonial, military, naval, even from 
a constitutional standpoint. To a less de- 
gree have we been conscious of the change 
caused in our international relations. 

It is a common though hardly an accu- 
rate remark that the Spanish War awakened 
Europe to a sense of our greatness as a 
nation. Though this was true of the masses 
on the Continent, there were many public 
men abroad fully aware of our resources 
and our capabilities. It was rather that the 



58 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Old World, having grown accustomed to 
consider us as a colossus self-contained, and 
voluntarily abstaining from all external in- 
terference, suddenly realized, as we our- 
selves with no less surprise realized, that 
that day was over and that henceforth we 
were ready to assume our part in the world. 
With justifiably ambitious views of the 
future to which we believe our destinies 
direct us, we have not yet renovated, so to 
speak, the mechanism of our action. Cer- 
tain of our methods still remain unadapted 
to new conditions, unchanged from what they 
were at a time when the country's responsi- 
bilities were slight and its foreign problems 
simple. We still view international relations 
with the same directness of vision as before, 
without fully appreciating the possibilities 
which lie before us or the methods which 
a more difficult position would urge us to 
employ. The nation at large is hardly con- 
scious that we have to-day outgrown an 
antiquated system which under actual con- 
ditions is hardly conducive to our security. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 59 

Other measures have become necessary in 
order to safeguard the foreign relations of 
a great state that has to defend over-sea 
dependencies and a policy which is one 
of the greatest burdens ever voluntarily 
assumed by any nation. 

Although the Monroe Doctrine has passed 
into an article of national creed which, irre- 
spective of party, appears almost axiomat- 
ically to embody our foreign policy, the 
reverence with which it inspires us does not 
equally impress other nations. It would 
be doing the country poor service to lull 
it into believing that the European powers 
accept the doctrine in the same spirit as 
ourselves, or that its present maintenance 
reposes on any other ultimate basis than 
that of force. In the past we have tacitly 
endeavored to secure its recognition by 
abstaining from all assertion of our au- 
thority abroad. We treated Europe as a 
monarchical entity and expected similar 
consideration for republican institutions in 
America. But we lost sight of the fact that 



60 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

when this policy was inaugurated we were 
in no position to warrant the great Euro- 
pean powers entering into such a bargain. 
Few things come gratuitously, particularly 
in diplomacy. When in later years, although 
able to make our voice heard, we offered 
no direct compensation in return for favors 
we did not ask, other nations felt under no 
obligation to bind themselves to the accept- 
ance of our view. 

The acquisition of the Philippines, re- 
sulting in the extension of American power 
into Asiatic waters, deprived us, in the mind 
of Europe, of whatever moral justification 
we might previously have possessed for the 
Monroe Doctrine. According to the idea 
that had been prevalent abroad, the sole 
basis for our right in venturing to exclude 
the Old World from regarding the New as a 
field for further colonial aggrandizement lay 
in restricting our activities to the western 
hemisphere. The fact that such had been 
our course since the birth of the Republic 
appeared to give additional sanction to this 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 61 

idea. When, therefore, the Philippines be- 
came an American possession, we seemed 
in the eyes of Europe to have forfeited all 
moral claim to our contention. This loss, 
however, was more than counterbalanced 
in other directions. The acquisition of new 
dependencies and the vast growth of Ameri- 
can influence in every quarter of the globe 
gave us a prestige far more diplomatically 
negotiable than the position we had left be- 
hind. That we have fully availed ourselves 
of the new benefits obtained is, however, 
questionable. Antiquated traditions have 
caused us to neglect the diplomatic means 
wherewith to strengthen our position and 
effect a security for our policies far greater 
than any moral right could ever confer. 

The nation, peace-loving, yet determined 
at all costs to uphold the Monroe Doctrine, 
has not devoted its attention toward the 
pacific methods of bringing this about. We 
have omitted to do in its support what 
powers like France and England, in the face 
of far stronger opposition than any encoun- 



62 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

tered by us, have accomplished in countries 
where their action was less justifiable than 
our own, but where they have acquired for 
their position a sanction which the acqui- 
escence of the only powers able to dispute 
their titles has legitimized. England, for 
instance, having first obtained the recogni- 
tion of her occupation of Egypt from the 
non-interested powers, secured it finally by 
diplomatic means from France, in spite of 
the latter's previous animosity, which on 
more than one occasion had brought the two 
nations to the verge of war. Similarly in her 
seizure of Tunis, France first obtaining the 
aid of Germany, eager at that time to divert 
her former enemy to colonial enterprises, 
and later winning over British support, her 
position became legalized in the face of the 
hostility of Italy, who felt unable to dis- 
pute it single-handed and was finally forced 
to content herself with the recognition of 
shadowy eventual claims over Tripoli. 

We have been unaccustomed to consider 
this order of negotiation, and have not been 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 63 

aroused by lack of success to the necessity of 
taking diplomatic precautions. Under past 
conditions, the simplicity of our former 
methods and requirements was sufficient to 
permit us to dispense therewith. But now 
that our liabilities have more than kept pace 
with en,larged resources we cannot afford 
to forget the hostility which the ** brazenly 
impudent" Monroe Doctrine, as Bismarck 
once termed it, has encountered abroad, or 
the frank denunciation it has met on the 
part of public men and political writers on 
the Continent. Although this animosity is 
temporarily quiescent, our diplomacy has 
still abundant scope before it in endeavoring 
to counteract such a prejudice. 

But for the Philippines we might have 
been indifferent to the dislike of Europe. To 
the weakness caused by our pretensions in 
South America we have added the weakness 
caused by Asiatic acquisitions. If ever the 
Monroe Doctrine is challenged, its fate may 
well be disputed in the waters of Manila 
Bay. There exists, however, an essential dif- 



64 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

ference in the degree of exposure between 
our position in the Philippines and our 
assertion of the Monroe Doctrine. While 
without a policy of understandings the se- 
curity of the former can hardly be assured, 
the latter may be safeguarded by obtaining 
its recognition from the only powers able 
to challenge it. By peaceful methods, as 
effectively as by a more aggressive policy, 
we are able to guarantee its preservation. 
No nation will to-day break solemn obliga- 
tions without considerable incentive or prov- 
ocation. If ever the recognition of the great 
European powers is, therefore, accorded to 
a policy which menaces no peace-loving 
state, the dangers of war in questions rising 
out of the interpretation of the Monroe 
Doctrine will be reduced to insignificance. 
Where England and France have obtained 
the acquiescence of other powers for colo- 
nial ventures of questionable character, 
we can secure similar recognition for our 
policy. To certain nations of Europe its 
acceptance would be a matter of indif- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 65 

ference; to one it would undoubtedly be 
welcome. 

Great Britain has often given us the 
proof of her sincere friendship. An English 
statesman first suggested the Monroe Doc- 
trine, and the strength of England in the 
days of our weakness made possible its 
preservation. Great Britain, with a still 
dominant trade in South America, is almost 
as interested as ourselves that no portion of 
that continent should be alienated to the 
advantage of any European power. French 
interests are similar to those of England. 
Apart from the natural desire to round out 
the boundaries of her great African empire, 
France has to-day no other colonial ambi- 
tion than to preserve what is already hers, 
least of all one of the serious nature which 
the challenge of our policy would require. 
And although the doctrine has in itself been 
an object of dislike to certain French polit- 
ical writers, the influence of their ideas, 
which tended in another sphere toward alli- 
ance with Germany and a European con- 



66 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

federation, has greatly diminished in recent 
years. 

In Russia, as well, we have often found 
a friend who would be the more ready to 
recognize our contention in South America, 
as she is herself without ambitions or inter- 
ests in the western hemisphere. 

Only two European powers are conceiv- 
ably likely at any time to challenge the 
Monroe Doctrine, and one of these could 
not be in a position to do so for many years. 
Germany and Italy are alike in possessing 
great interests in South America. The dan- 
ger of interference by the former in south- 
ern Brazil has been frequently commented 
upon, and although the present cordial re- 
lations existing between the German Em- 
pire and ourselves render such peril for the 
time without foundation, in certain not 
impossible events, coupled with any neglect 
in our own watchfulness, it cannot be said 
that the temptation for German interven- 
tion in South America, with its inevitable 
results, would not present itself. It would 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 67 

certainly be dangerous to interpret Ger- 
many's consulting us in her recent difficul- 
ties with Venezuela as an indication of her 
formal subscription to the Monroe Doctrine. 
The convenience of negotiation might cause 
her to treat with us repeatedly without 
further binding her to the recognition of 
any such principle. It may be well to recall 
Napoleon the Third's words to Slidell, that 
in diplomacy nothing was held to exist that 
had not formally been written. (Had M. 
Delcasse remembered this, he could not 
have made the mistake of believing that 
Germany assented to his Moroccan policy.) 
While any challenge of the Monroe Doc- 
trine may safely be set aside so long as our 
naval strength makes us a formidable an- 
tagonist, it is doubtful if Germany or any 
other nation would attach importance to 
inferences which might be drawn from past 
acts, provided the existing incentive was 
adequate and the danger of action reduced 
to insignificant proportions. Unless a na- 
tion's hands are formally tied by written 



68 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

agreement, its acceptance of the Monroe or 
any other doctrine against its own interests 
cannot be presupposed. 

The fear of Italian interference is fortu- 
nately very remote, and Italy's recent arbi- 
tration treaty with the Argentine proves the 
peaceful intentions of her present policy. 
Misfortunes in Abyssinia have for the 
time removed from her all taste for colonial 
ventures. But Italy, rapidly growing in na- 
tional wealth and strength, wishes to regard 
herself as the successor of Imperial Rome. 
Her present policy is based on the preserva- 
tion of existing conditions until such time as 
she may be better able to avail herself of op- 
portunities. While the inflammable nature 
of her masses is to-day held in restraint by 
an able governing power, a real or fancied 
grievance suffered in a moment of violence 
by Italians in South America, such as once 
took place at New Orleans, might, without 
attention on our part, lead to consequences 
antagonistic to our policies. We cannot for- 
get that in several of the South American 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 69 

states, notably in the Argentine, the Italians 
are the dominant foreign element, and that 
the national ethos of the Latin republics is 
not always strong enough to cause emi- 
grants to forget the links that bind them to 
the land of their origin. Fortunately the 
many existing ties of friendship between 
Italy and ourselves, which were strengthened 
by the aid it was our privilege to extend 
during the recent Messina disaster, render 
most unlikely any difference between two 
states possessing so many mutual sympa- 
thies. 

The day may never come when either 
Germany or Italy will seek to interfere in 
the affairs of the southern continent. But 
a nation, like the human body, acts differ- 
ently under the stress of feverish excite- 
ment. The wisdom of diplomacy lies in 
removing possible causes of friction be- 
tw^een countries during normal conditions. 
It would be prudence to endeavor to se- 
cure from these powers at a time when 
no popular passions have been aroused. 



70 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

when neither national pride nor interests 
are at stake, and when only the friendliest 
relations exist between them and ourselves, 
a recognition of the principles underlying 
the Monroe Doctrine. If the acquiescence 
of Great Britain, France, and Russia were 
obtained, Italy would hardly care to place 
herself in opposition to subscribing thereto. 
And with the example of the other powers, 
Germany and her Austrian ally value our 
amity too greatly to take a position which 
could be interpreted as unfriendly. Ger- 
man diplomacy, realizing that such attitude 
on her part would tend to draw us closer to 
England, is far-sighted enough to accord 
her recognition in this event to our South 
American policies. 

With the Monroe Doctrine thus officially 
recognized by the only powers in position to 
dispute it, its security would be as effica- 
ciously guaranteed as by more aggressive 
means. Even were we otherwise unable to 
obtain such recognition, opportunities have 
not been wanting to secure it where we 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 71 

might have found the leverage necessary to 
effect diplomatic action. For instance, the 
United States had been invited to participate 
in the conference which met in 1885 to settle 
the future of the Congo and resulted in 
dividing the then unapportioned remainder 
of Central Africa. Our refusal to profit by 
its decisions, which our delegate had been 
instrumental in bringing about, may have 
been justified at a time when we were not 
yet a colonizing power; but the acquisition 
of even a tract of African jungle might have 
been of service later in securing, in exchange 
for its cession or lease to some more inter- 
ested power, the recognition on its part of 
the Monroe Doctrine. 

Certain more recent opportunities al- 
lowed to slip occurred during the Algeciras 
Conference. Germany on that occasibn, in 
order to justify her position and give equity 
to a procedure the high-handedness of 
which did not escape the criticism of neu- 
trals, had placed herself upon a self-deny- 
ing basis and proclaimed as her intention 



72 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

the laudable desire to safeguard the in- 
tegrity of Morocco. Her position towards 
that state was, with far less justification, 
analogous to the one we occupy towards 
South America. But in spite of the appar- 
ent justice of her contention, save for Aus- 
tria, Germany could find for it no support 
from any of the great European powers, 
whose aid had, for different reasons, already 
been pledged to France. Germany's efforts 
were therefore directed to winning us over 
to her side. As the only great power 
enjoying complete freedom of action, our 
role permitted considerable latitude. But 
though its possibilities were wisely utilized, 
our disinterestedness might, perhaps, have 
been coupled with a vigilant diplomacy in 
enlarging the scope of the German conten- 
tion. Germany, professing eagerness to 
preserve the integrity of Morocco as a field 
of equal opportunity for all, would hardly 
at the same time have acknowledged enter- 
taining designs of a different order in the 
western hemisphere. While her diploma- 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 73 

tists were endeavoring to win us over to 
their support, if a proposition had been 
advanced aimed at guaranteeing the in- 
tegrity of South America, in the same way 
as Germany had put herself forward as the 
champion of Morocco, it would have been 
difficult for her to refuse us formal assur- 
ances regarding the future of the Spanish 
republics. A pledge thus secured might on 
a later occasion have been an important 
factor in the preservation of peace. The 
hands of a nation are tied once it has made 
official declarations; and though history 
shows how conventions have been violated, 
a country will be far more likely to abstain 
from action when it has given pledges than 
where none have been forthcoming. We 
have only to remember how the French 
omission to consult Germany in her Mo- 
roccan venture was utilized by the latter as 
the excuse for an interference which brought 
the two nations to the verge of war. By our 
neglect to commit the Great Powers to a 
recognition of the Monroe Doctrine, we 



74 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

have lost a point in our favor which in a 
future period of strained relations might 
conceivably have swayed a wavering bal- 
ance in the direction of peace. 

Another opportunity occurred at the 
same conference in connection with the 
Moroccan state bank. Its foundation was 
exceptional in every way. But in semi-civil- 
ized states commerce and diplomacy are 
intimately connected. The bank share in 
question, to which we were entitled, was 
first accepted by us and then allowed to 
drop. The unprecedented inconvenience 
in the government's ownership of foreign 
bank stock, and the difficulties of its dis- 
posal to a private concern, are obvious. 
Representation, however, in the state bank 
of Morocco would have given us an entirely 
unexpected leverage to advance our com- 
mercial interests in that country, and have 
placed us on a footing of equality with na- 
tions far more directly concerned than our- 
selves. A less scrupulous diplomacy might, 
perhaps, have utilized such share for still 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 75 

another purpose. Even had it been of no 
immediate advantage to us, it would always 
have been so to a nation like France, pos- 
sessed of special interests and ambitions in 
Morocco. And, although its direct control 
could not have been ceded to any for- 
eign power, it is easy to imagine circum- 
stances effecting the same purpose in return 
for equivalent advantages obtained else- 
where. The French possessions in the West 
Indies and off the St. Lawrence are now of 
little use to her, but would be of consider- 
able importance to us. In the Moroccan 
bank share, which after having claimed we 
refused, there was lost to us a negotiable 
asset, so to speak, for the furtherance of 
our American policies. 

We have not availed ourselves, in the 
past, of the natural diplomatic advantages 
which so often befall nations. We have 
been too self-centred over matters which ap- 
peared of more immediate concern, to have 
noticed distant events from which, without 
risk or loss, we might have profited. Simi- 



76 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

lar opportunities unnecessary to mention, 
but where we could have gained substantial 
advantages, have arisen elsewhere; they 
are likely to occur again. The remedy lies 
with our diplomacy to prevent such chances 
from again being lost. By diplomacy as 
well as with battleships v/e can seek the 
advancement of our policies and the safe- 
guarding of our possessions. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE LATIN REPUBLICS 

The victory of a republican movement 
parallel to our own, which resulted in liber- 
ating the greater part of the New World 
from the domination of the Old, could have 
been viewed by us only with sympathy. We 
welcomed as a complement to our own 
Revolution the success of the Spanish 
colonies in establishing their independence, 
both by reason of the extension given to 
the republican idea and because it re- 
moved so great a portion of the western 
hemisphere from the field of European 
politics. 

The real beginning of our interest in 
Spanish America dates, however, from the 
declaration of the Monroe Doctrine. In 
proclaimmg this we did not incur the risk 
of war with Europe merely because of 
friendship for struggling newborn states, or 



78 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

for any abstract sentiment in favor of a form 
of government which was frequently to be- 
come a cover for dictatorship. Our deter- 
mination to resist any extension of foreign 
influence was due to the nation's profound 
conviction that its own vital interests would 
thereby be imperiled. American foreign 
policy has nowhere been more successful 
than in securing the possibility for the New 
World to develop free from European in- 
terference. But the celebrity achieved by 
the Monroe Doctrine has obscured the real 
nature of our intercourse with our southern 
neighbors. Superficially the doctrine has 
appeared to sum up the different aspects of 
our diplomacy toward them. In reality it 
has had but little to do with such relations. 
In the past, present, and future it repre- 
sents a permanent policy toward European 
but not toward American states. Its rela- 
tion to the latter may be likened to an outer 
wall on which we have mounted guard to 
permit their free development. Behind it 
a series of American policies, moulded in 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 79 

each case by the special exigencies of our 
position, still remains to be formed. 

Our relations with the Spanish republics 
are far too diverse to be embraced by any 
single formula. Their varying geographi- 
cal situation, even if no other cause were 
present, would necessarily be productive of 
different degrees of diplomatic interest on 
our part. Thus it is apparent that the 
Caribbean concerns us more intimately 
than the south Atlantic. Our policy in 
Cuba could manifestly not be repeated in 
Chili, while in Salvador we should act other- 
wise than in Paraguay. The foreign policy 
of any nation is dictated by its require- 
ments, and the necessities of our position 
are far from uniform. But in a general 
way the Orinoco may be said to provide a 
natural division for our policies in South 
America. The interest we feel in the great 
states to the south of it, Brazil and the 
Argentine, is eminently one of disinterested 
friendliness, aiming principally to cultivate 
closer commercial intercourse. Moreover, 



80 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

the contemplated increase in the arma- 
ments of the larger South American repub- 
lics, coupled with their growing importance 
as nations, bids fair in time to make these 
independent of our aid. 

For the maintenance of such relations as 
we may wish to preserve with these states 
we must prepare other measures than a mere 
assertion of common Americanism. The 
bond that unites us is hardly more evident 
than is the Europeanism linking together 
a Norwegian and a Greek, and the amica- 
ble sentiments exchanged over toasts and 
telegrams rest on a fragile basis so long as 
our means of communication remain un- 
improved. It is difficult to convince the 
inhabitant of Buenos Ayres or of Rio de 
Janeiro of the proximity of mutual inter- 
ests when, in order to reach North America, 
he finds himself obliged to go by way of 
Europe. A direct communication between 
our ports and theirs is as much a political as 
it is a commercial necessity. For our trade 
in almost every South American country. 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 81 

badly crippled by the present inadequate 
system, finds itself relegated to an inferior 
position. In order to justify the paramount 
title to which we lay claim in the Spanish 
republics, it still remains for us to prove 
the superiority of our interests to those of 
Great Britain, of Germany, and of France, 
whose capital has constructed most of their 
railways and financed their national and 
municipal loans 

On the Pacific coast we are fortunately in 
better position. After developing Mexico, 
our engineers have descended into Central 
America, where the rails they are laying will 
one day serve as links for the Pan-American 
road. In Peru, and now in Bolivia, our 
enterprise has not been behindhand. But 
we have still considerable to accomplish 
to overtake the financial and industrial 
efforts of European powers in their South 
American enterprise. 

Europe has long since awakened to the 
importance of Spanish America as a neutral 
market that will not soon be closed to the 



82 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

products of manufacturing countries. We, 
too, need anticipate there no discriminating 
tariff to bar our exports, while the increase 
of trade relations should be of mutual ad- 
vantage. Our political interests can there- 
fore be confined to the grateful task of 
assuming obligations without demanding 
corresponding equivalents. Our fleet is the 
pledge we extend to exclude the possibility 
of European interference. We need ask for 
nothing in return, since we desire nothing 
save the continuance of existing political 
conditions. 

Our diplomacy has, however, to assert 
itself more emphatically in Venezuela, Co- 
lombia, and the West Indian and Central 
American republics, whose harbors com- 
mand the approaches of the Panama Canal. 
The cutting of the isthmus and the new 
importance of the Pacific force us to real- 
ize that whatever consequence we formerly 
attached to the Caribbean has been im- 
measurably increased since the West Indies 
are to become a highroad to the Pacific, 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 83 

instead of a blind alley as heretofore. In 
determining the limits of our influence we 
must apply there what might be termed a 
Caribbean policy, in distinction from our 
relations with the other South American 
states, whose geographical situation renders 
them of less vital importance. 

It is fortunate for us that the countries 
whose ports in unfriendly hands might 
prove a menace to us are debarred by their 
weakness from the possibility of taking 
offensive action. It is less fortunate that 
their weakness should not have constituted 
a pledge against their misconduct. Vene- 
zuela has so often in recent years ruflied by 
misdeeds the diplomatic calm of nations, 
that our solicitude in her behalf has arisen 
rather from the fear lest justifiable redress 
be sought from her by foreign powers whose 
action would necessarily take place in 
waters of peculiar importance to us. Both 
Venezuela and Colombia must always pos- 
sess for us a special interest, due to their 
coast line, which assimilates them to the 



84 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

other Caribbean nations, while their close 
proximity to the isthmus makes it necessary 
at all cost to preserve their independence 
and guarantee their territory, even against 
themselves. 

The two states enjoy an altogether 
anomalous situation, their position offering 
in certain respects an American analogy to 
the problem of the Dardanelles. In the 
same way that England has twice saved 
Turkey from dismemberment in order to 
prevent these straits from falling into the 
hands of a stronger power, it must be our 
object to preserve the inviolability of both 
countries, whatever be the provocation they 
give. 

In connection with this, a word may be 
said of a frequent cause of dispute with 
the Latin republics, and particularly with 
Venezuela. Besides foreigners who possess 
perfectly legitimate business interests in 
Spanish America, there are others who, 
actuated by the hope of larger profits, 
employ more questionable methods. In 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 85 

return for special advantages or the expec- 
tation of future benefits, it often happens 
that they affiliate themselves unduly either 
with the government of to-day, who may 
be the revolutionaries of to-morrow, or the 
revolutiojQaries of to-day, who may be the 
government of to-morrow. In either in- 
stance, reprisals in the nature of fines or 
confiscations are likely to occur, and out of 
these grow claims for damages which our 
government as well as others has frequently 
been called upon to enforce. Such penal- 
ties, however, are nearly always imposed by 
decision of the country's highest court, 
which, outwardly at least, complies with 
the customary judicial forms. 

It matters little that such courts are tools 
in a dictator's hands, and that legally their 
verdict may be questionable. If we op- 
posed our own administrative judgment to 
their judicial authority, whatever might be 
our right in substance, we should, in view 
of the high, equitable stand we have always 
taken in such matters, err in form. Remedy 



86 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

exists, it is true, in the procedure of sum- 
mary arbitration provided for by the recent 
Hague Conference, but this has still to 
prove its acceptability. It might be well, 
therefore, to prepare for contingencies of 
refusal, and either enlarge the jurisdiction 
of one of our own superior federal courts, 
or else establish a tribunal which might 
equitably apportion the extent and nature 
of claims of this nature prior to their being 
filed. Whatever be the legal competence 
of the State Department, its opinion in 
points of law cannot carry with it the same 
authority before the nation or before the 
world as would that of a properly consti- 
tuted court. Moreover, since the efforts to 
adjudicate possible claims have necessarily 
to pass through diplomatic channels at 
some stage, it would be placing the govern- 
mental department concerned with foreign 
affairs in an unfair position, to demand that 
it both judge and enforce its judgment. 
Our diplomacy would escape much un- 
necessary and unjust criticism if, before 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 87 

pressing for the settlement of any claim 
against certain countries, we should insist 
on its first being examined and passed on by 
a competent tribunal. This accomplished, 
public opinion will judge as to the relative 
merit of our courts in comparison with 
those of states like Venezuela; but without 
this we lay ourselves open to the charge of 
having used violence to enforce doubtful 
claims against a weaker power. 

While we could, if necessary, overrun or 
occupy without great impediment any of 
the West Indian or Central American states, 
our action in South America, were it ever 
to extend beyond the limits of diplomacy, 
would experience difficulty in going beyond 
the seizure of ports and the blocking of 
rivers. Hence Venezuela and Colombia 
stand in peculiar relation to our policy, en- 
joying practical invulnerability by nature 
of their continental position. Their high- 
lands sloping from the coast mark the bar- 
rier we must impose as a southern limit to 
our active intervention. 



88 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Elsewhere in the Caribbean our position 
may be compared to that of the owner of a 
great estate surrounded by smaller neigh- 
bors. While disposed to leave these in un- 
disturbed possession, should their property 
come into the market we should regard its 
acquisition prudent, to save it from falling 
into other hands. In Great Britain and, 
in lesser degree, in France, Holland, and 
Denmark, we have neighbors with whom 
our future relations are likely to be as sin- 
cerely cordial as are our present. We have 
neither incentive nor desire to disturb their 
actual colonial possessions. But if for any 
reason there should ever be the wish to dis- 
pose of these, we are not likely to repeat our 
former error in neglecting to acquire St. 
Thomas. And in case circu instances place 
us again in possession of territorial or dip- 
lomatic advantages in other regions of the 
globe, our statesmen may find therein useful 
pawns to offer in exchange for islands closer 
to our shores. 

The nation's policy demands that we im- 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 89 

pose in the Caribbean the "pax Americana 
by refusing to permit in it the turbulence 
so often provocative of foreign interference. 
In so doing, Porto Rico, Cuba, and San 
Domingo offer the precedents for our fu- 
ture action. The one presents a final goal 
toward which our policy must tend; the 
others, intermediary stages in the same pro- 
cess. The possession of Porto Rico has 
firmly established us as a West Indian 
power, and our action in Cuba inaugurated 
the beginning of a new policy toward the 
islands within our national orbit. When 
for the second time American intervention 
had been invoked, the world marveled at 
the political suicide Cuba was supposed to 
have committed. It is characteristic of our 
generosity that we pledged ourselves to re- 
store the Cuban republic as soon as order 
had been established, but we thereby like- 
wise tied our hands* by an unexpected de- 
claration and put off an almost inevitable 
result. The laws of gravitation operate 
with states as with planets, and the ultimate 



90 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

future of Cuba can hardly be doubted. 
Nor need our present forbearance be re- 
gretted if the American people learn from 
it the necessity devolving upon them of 
insuring stable government at their doors. 
The long road we are now traveling in 
Cuba in order to achieve a predestined re- 
sult may serve at least to abridge later steps 
when next a similar contingency presents 
itself. 

A different stage in our intervention is 
now witnessed in San Domingo, where, with 
no risk to ourselves, we are showing how 
the muddled finances of a country can be 
placed on a sound basis of credit, and have 
the opportunity of acting in a disinterested 
capacity without imposing an unwelcome 
interference. 

The justification of the European sys- 
tem of colonization over already populated 
areas has always been that, whenever the 
conditions of disorder in a country are such 
that the principle of authority ceases to 
exist and a menace is created to the life and 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 91 

property of foreigners, this state of anarchy 
offers sufficient reason for the interference 
of a more powerful nation better capa- 
ble of maintaining order. In the western 
hemisphere we have successfully opposed 
the Monroe Doctrine to such pretensions. 
But we should be lacking in equity if the 
result of our policy should be only to give 
a guarantee to the perpetuation of misrule 
and the freedom from molestation of a fre- 
quently irresponsible dictatorship. The jus- 
tice of our position depends upon a firm 
determination to remedy, where we can, the 
flagrant abuses which would otherwise war- 
rant foreign intervention; and since it is 
particularly in the region where our inter- 
ests are most vital that certain states appear 
unable to maintain the requisite stability of 
government, it becomes our duty to assist 
these. 

In Mexico we have to-day an orderly 
neighbor, the foundations of whose pros- 
perity appear to be solidly laid. Our en- 
terprise and capital have assisted largely in 



92 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

furthering economic expansion south of the 
Rio Grande. But to what extent the pre- 
sent conditions of order are due to the sig- 
nal ability of its President, the retirement 
of Diaz will alone prove. Has the genius of 
a great statesman been sufficient to instill 
habits of law-observance and a conception 
of representative government in a country 
unaccustomed thereto? The capacity of 
Mexico as a modern state is a problem that 
deeply concerns us, not only because it is 
a neighboring country wherein we have 
extensive interests, but because of the Cen- 
tral American republics. In the past we 
have protected these from Mexican en- 
croachments, and even less could we per- 
mit a change in their status now that they 
have assumed an altogether new importance 
by reason of the Panama Canal. Their 
strategic position, commanding its northern 
approaches on both the Caribbean and the 
Pacific, is too great not to impose on our 
policy the desirability of continuing the 
present system of small independent states, 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 93 

practically under our protection and over 
whom we are able to exert influence when 
necessary. The alternative would be their 
union with Mexico in what under a strong 
dictator might become a powerful nation, 
possibly antagonistic to our policies and 
able to invoke the intervention of foreign 
powers. This danger can be effectually pre- 
vented only by guaranteeing their present 
independence, a measure in line with our 
policy of years. 

There exists traditionally what might 
be termed an unwritten corollary of the 
Monroe Doctrine, which demands that the 
American continent be not made the scene 
of such territorial partitions and seizures 
as have disgraced European warfare. And 
while we cannot lay claim to having fol- 
lowed this with strictness, the acquisition of 
California was that of a practically unin- 
habited territory, and not of a state which, 
however disorderly, was yet self-governing. 
Further land we neither seek nor require, 
save the lease of such coaling stations as 



91 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Amapala Bay on the west coast of Central 
America, the possession of which would 
offer the fleet a much-needed strategic base 
on the Pacific close to the canal, while our 
permanent retention of a small armed force 
at this junction of three turbulent republics 
would act as a wholesome restraint in curb- 
ing local revolution and assisting the main- 
tenance of order. 

A natural sympathy with the principle of 
arbitration has caused us to look favorably 
on the recent conference of Central Ameri- 
can states held under our auspices. It is 
certainly to be desired that it fulfill the hopes 
of its promoters. But the fear may be ex- 
pressed that these states are not yet ripe 
for the principles involved, and that by our 
assent we may have made ourselves party 
to a measure which will possibly deprive 
us later of means of action in correcting 
injustice when committed. Under existing 
conditions it would hardly be wise for us 
to curtail the assertion of our influence, and 
any forbearance in this direction out of 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 95 

respect for abstract principles would only 
be interpreted as a weakness which, in lands 
of such peculiar interest to us, might lead 
to fresh disturbances. 

The southern limit of the United States is 
no longer the Rio Grande, but the Panama 
Canal^ and although our territory is not un- 
broken, our influence should be. The Piatt 
amendment, which mapped out our present 
policy in Cuba, offers a guiding precedent 
for future action in Central America. Nor 
is it believed by those best acquainted with 
the situation that any insurmountable dif- 
ficulty would be met with in effecting its 
acceptance by the five republics. The recog- 
nition of some such principle on the part 
of all the states bordering on the Caribbean 
would be a noteworthy achievement for 
our diplomacy. In any event, it is most im- 
portant that our envoys should everywhere 
occupy in the Spanish republics a para- 
mount position as friendly advisers to 
the governments to which they find them- 
selves accredited. Their disinterested coun- 



96 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

sel tactfullygiven in time could often obviate 
entanglements with foreign powers and thus 
relieve us from having recourse to pos- 
sible measures as necessary as they would 
be embarrassing. Such advice could be suc- 
cessful, however, only if the influence and 
sense of equity of our envoys were to be 
acknowledged by both sides. Our policy 
should therefore aim at a most careful se- 
lection of diplomatic representatives who 
would be acquainted, through long and spe- 
cial training, with the peculiar problems 
they would be called on to handle. More- 
over, it should endeavor to obtain for these 
higher consideration by methods similar 
to those employed by European powers 
in the Orient. Just as other nations have 
organized picked services for their repre- 
sentation in the Levant and in the Far 
East, a like necessity impresses itself on us 
in Latin America. But the organization of 
such a body of men is insuflScient without 
giving it a prestige and advantages which 
would make service of this nature prized 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 97 

in spite of undoubted drawbacks in climate 
and life. The failure to provide advantages 
counterbalancing the hardships would only 
repeat the history of our student inter- 
preters in China, where it has now been 
found necessary to remedy a condition 
which left within the service chiefly the 
inferior men, the abler ones abandoning it 
to accept more lucrative positions in com- 
mercial life. It w^ould be no less short- 
sighted than unworthy of us as a nation, to 
endeavor to dole out with a sparing hand 
trifling benefits for arduous service of the 
nature we should expect. 

The government ownership of suitable 
residences, and increases of pay in certain 
capitals, would do much to mitigate the 
present unpopularity from which Latin 
America suffers among diplomatists, while 
the former measure ought long ago to have 
commended itself, if on no other ground 
than as a national investment and a matter 
of national pride. The most important step 
is, however, for our representatives to enjoy 



98 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

when possible higher diplomatic rank than 
that of their colleagues. The European 
powers have been accustomed to send as 
their envoys to the Latin American coun- 
tries ministers resident or plenipotentiary. 
In the same way France out of compli- 
ment to a sister republic sends an ambas- 
sador to Berne, our representative could in 
either instance be of a higher grade. Hence 
the recent amendment of the law on the 
creation of ambassadors was in certain re- 
spects unfortunate. Instead, for instance, 
of discouraging Chili from sending us an 
envoy of the highest rank, it would more 
likely have proved to our advantage to have 
had at Santiago an official of that grade, 
who by virtue of his grade would always 
have been dean of its diplomatic body. 

As a nation we are disinclined to attach- 
ing significance to what would be irrelevant 
forms were it not for the importance at- 
tached thereto by other nations. With our 
habits of thought it is difficult to realize 
the advantage possessed by the dean of the 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 99 

diplomatic body not only in prestige, but in 
all questions involving concert of action. 
The Spanish republics, however, present a 
field where American diplomacy may often 
be at variance with that of the European 
powers, and if our envoy be dean, he could 
at times prevent possible concert on the 
part of the foreign representatives prejudi- 
cial to our interests. Conversely, it is not 
difficult to conceive of circumstances where 
a European dean might make use of his 
position and enlist his colleagues in a com- 
mon action far from agreeable to us. 

We have done so much to cultivate 
friendly relations with our southern neigh- 
bors in recent years that it is unfortunate 
our actions should at times have been mis- 
interpreted. That a more correct apprecia- 
tion of our motives should not invariably 
have existed, can in a certain measure be 
laid down at the door of diplomacy. In dip- 
lomatic intercourse with the South Amer- 
ican states we have always to avoid the 
strictures of unfriendly criticism, remember- 



100 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

ing that we have been regarded in the past 
with a not unnatural fear and distrust by 
the Latin republics lest the Monroe Doc- 
trine afford a subtle means of drawing them 
into our nets. Pan-Iberism has been op- 
posed to Pan-Americanism; "Against Mon- 
roe we will pit Monroe and a half," a 
Brazilian statesman is reported to have 
said. In Chili especially an anti-American 
movement had asserted itself, and the idea 
was even mooted of a Latin American con- 
federation, directed as much against us as 
against the European powers. 

Our policy of benevolent friendship has 
not always been appreciated at its worth, 
and we have found ourselves in the position 
of having, without advantage to ourselves, 
given unconscious offense to nations un- 
able to retort and therefore hypersensitive 
in their susceptibilities. A case in point 
occurred during the recent Pan-American 
Conference at Rio Janeiro. Our delegation 
there was supposed to favor a so-called 
"monitor" system, whereby it was intended 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 101 

that the greater powers should exercise a 
general surveillance over the smaller coun- 
tries in curbing their turbulent propensities 
and keeping the peace. While the inten- 
tion underlying this was eminently proper 
and the result possibly beneficial, the dif- 
ferentiation thus suggested among Latin 
American states was not without giving 
offense to the weaker countries at such ex- 
pression of their inferiority. Nor is it cer- 
tain, even if there existed no risk of the 
larger powers seeking to abuse their posi- 
tion, that the latter would be better able 
to maintain order. The annals of Uruguay 
are perhaps as orderly as those of Brazil. 

It is not difficult to see that the beneficial 
results of our policy in one quarter may be 
nullified by unintentional offense given else- 
where. Our interests are everywhere con- 
nected, and concerted action is no less ne- 
cessary on the part of diplomacy than in 
other spheres. The recent Hague Confer- 
ence provides further illustration of this. 
Our advocacy there of compulsory arbitra- 



102 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

tion, while proving sympathy for humani- 
tarian ideals, was not without imperiling 
the friendliness of relations with the Latin 
republics. Inseparably connected with the 
principle at stake was the creation of a court 
to judge questions of arbitration, and our 
pitfall, which to certain powers proved not 
unwelcome, lay in the composition of this 
tribunal. If the great European powers 
alone had been concerned, the solution 
would have been simple ; but it was appar- 
ent that we could not expect these to allow 
questions of national interest to be decided 
by the judicial representatives of Ecuador 
and Paraguay. And while an ingenious 
compromise smoothed out the major diffi- 
culties of this thorny question, in view of 
our friendly feeling towards Latin America 
it might have been preferable for us to 
have expressed our adhesion to the plan of 
arbitration presented by some other nation 
rather than to have proposed it ourselves. 
In spite, however, of certain easily reme- 
diable deficiencies, our relations with our 



THE LATIN REPUBLICS 103 

southern neighbors, owing largely to the 
wise policy recently pursued with eminent 
success, have never been so cordial. And 
since our friendship is sincere and our inter- 
ests are in no way divergent, there is every 
likelihood of the present amicable senti- 
ments being continued. 

Further than such friendship and our 
self-imposed unilateral obligation in de- 
fending the Monroe Doctrine it would be 
unwise for us to venture. The dream of a 
confederation of American republics headed 
by us, and leagued together in defense of 
common rights, would unfortunately be 
mainly impressive by the number of its 
states. It could not be regarded as a safe 
working basis for political action or military 
defense, nor would it find interest in our 
Asiatic dependencies. While such federa- 
tion might prove of considerable utility 
under certain conditions, it would be rather 
as a secondary than as a primary basis for 
defense. An understanding, to be effective, 
can be contracted only with naval and colo- 



104 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

nial powers of the first magnitude, having 
interests similar to our own. 

The instability of many of our southern 
neighbors offers both the cause of their 
weakness and the reason why we cannot 
blind ourselves to the responsibilities which 
may there devolve upon us. A skilled and 
watchful diplomacy maintained by us in 
these states, however, would contribute 
more than anything else in averting this 
danger and extending our legitimate influ- 
ence without incurring the drawbacks of 
new and undesired possessions. We desire 
in Latin America only the furtherance of 
commercial ties and the preservation of 
their existing independence. In our own 
interest we can wish for no more. 



CHAPTER V 

THE FAR EAST 

Our relations with the Far East have 
pursued a distinct course since the early- 
days of the Republic when the enterprise of 
New England merchantmen first bore the 
flag into Chinese waters. In the struggle for 
commercial success in the Orient we were 
able to enter on an equal footing with the 
nations of Europe. In Japan we even pre- 
ceded these and opened the Island Empire 
to the commerce of the world. American 
intercourse with the Far East stands thus on 
a different level from our foreign relations 
elsewhere. We have abstained from all in- 
terference in Europe, Africa, and the Le- 
vant, and rightly upheld preeminence on the 
American continent; in the extreme Orient 
our equality with the European powers has 
from the first been asserted. Geographi- 
cally, politically, and economically alike, 



106 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

our interests predicated the position we 
have there assumed. 

American policy in the extreme Orient 
has always been of a peaceful and commer- 
cial nature. Where Russia and France 
shaped for themselves colonial empires, 
where Germany, and even England, were 
ready to share in the spoils of an antici- 
pated division of China, we have wisely 
abstained from similar attempts. We alone 
refrained from treating the Oriental na- 
tions in the same high-handed manner to 
which they were subjected at the hands 
of European powers. Rather have we 
given them abundant proof of the sincerity 
of our friendship and the equity of our 
conduct. 

Even the acquisition of the Philippines, 
which made us an Asiatic power, did not 
alter previous relations, although forcing 
us to consider far more attentively prob- 
lems that had before been remote. Our 
possession of the archipelago disturbed no 
balance of power, cut short no other ambi- 



THE FAR EAST 107 

tions than those of Filipino nationalism. 
We entertained no further territorial desires 
in the Far East, nor were likely ever to 
do so. Hence the amicable spirit which had 
characterized our former intercourse with 
China and Japan bade fair to be continued. 
We appeared to the Orientals as the one 
nation in whom they could place confidence, 
since we were devoid of political ambitions 
menacing their own. 

There was thus no reason to anticipate 
that our Far Eastern interests need ever in 
the future clash with the legitimate aspi- 
rations of these powers. No fundamental 
differences severed us; certainly no dif- 
ferences of a nature necessitating violent 
solution. 

Yet out of this clear sky, after a half cen- 
tury of the most cordial relations, and on 
the morrow of a period during which we 
had manifested more than usual friend- 
ship toward Japan, even at the cost of a 
traditional amity with Russia, there arose 
the talk of war. From a trifling matter of 



108 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

school attendance the question was broad- 
ened to that of mastery of the Pacific, and 
sensation-mongers exploited that cry in 
justification of their action. Fortunately 
the governments of both nations realized 
the wicked absurdity of a contest which 
would have no object and would settle no 
question. The Pacific is easily wide enough 
for both Japan and America ; no more than 
the Atlantic can any one power now domi- 
nate it. 

That the shipping trade of the western 
ocean is destined, in great measure, to fall 
to the Japanese can hardly be doubted. 
Their natural aptitude for the sea, coupled 
with a cheap standard of wages and an in- 
ferior scale of living, renders their competi- 
tion dangerous not only for us but for every 
maritime power. The very few American 
vessels plying the Pacific are notoriously 
able to do so only by virtue of agreement 
with the Japanese companies. Without this 
they would soon be driven from the seas 
unless provided with governmental sub- 



THE FAR EAST 109 

sidies of more liberal nature than yet con- 
templated. 

A war against Japan for the mastery 
of an ocean over which American vessels 
under normal conditions could not hope to 
sail, would thus offer but a sterile victory 
for our shipping. Moreover, it is hardly 
likely that either contestant could so com- 
pletely crush the other as to secure its 
undisputed supremacy. Nor ought we to 
forget that a prosperous Japan, able to pur- 
chase our exports, is in many ways desirable 
to us. The commercial ties binding the two 
nations work for their mutual benefit, and 
the suffering of one cannot but react on the 
other. Fortunately, too many common in- 
terests exist for the diplomacies of both 
countries, instead of running counter, not 
to find it desirable to cooperate in neutral 
fields. 

Even if Japanese protectionism be event- 
ually applied to Korea, it cannot be easily 
enforced elsewhere upon the Asiatic main- 
land. We have sought to profit in the Far 



110 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

East only by the open door of equal oppor- 
tunity for all, and Japan has, with cause, 
pledged herself to the same programme. 
Possessed of abundant cheap skilled labor, 
resourceful and enterprising, she is already 
underselling her commercial rivals in many 
markets, and her industry has no need to 
fear the competition of the western nations. 

The source of the present difficulties be- 
tween the two countries is based rather on 
the white workingman's dread of the vir- 
tues and not the vices of the yellow races. 
The Pacific States intend to remain what 
has become vulgarly known as a "white 
man's country," with all the corollaries 
thereof which are likely to become multi- 
plying thorns of trouble in proportion to the 
growing strength of Asiatic powers. With- 
out entering into the moral or economic 
aspects of the question, we must well under- 
stand that henceforth our foreign policy 
will be obliged to accept this attitude as a 
fundamental condition for its action. 

The problem is no new one. It is met 



THE FAR EAST 111 

with in every land where a white self-gov- 
erning community considers itself in dan- 
ger through the economic competition of the 
yellow races. The novelty of the present 
situation arises from the fact that for the 
first time an Asiatic state has found itself 
in position to resent the discrimination and 
insult to which its citizens have been sub- 
jected. 

While the essential features of the ques- 
tion were, perhaps, unavoidable, in view of 
the violence of opinion on this subject, a 
similar result might have been accomplished 
in California with, perhaps, less slight to 
Japanese susceptibilities. We are, as a 
people, too little conscious of the importance 
of form, especially in dealing with a highly 
sensitive and decorous Oriental race, among 
whom politeness has passed into a second 
nature. We frequently give offense where, 
with a little care and under a slightly dif- 
ferent form, the result aimed at could 
have been otherwise attained. The refusal, 
for instance, to permit Japanese pupils to 



112 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

attend certain San Francisco schools was 
possibly justified. But such prohibition 
should have been general and not specific. 
Had all foreign children been excluded, 
discrimination could not have been alleged 
nor offense taken. Individual permission 
might later have been granted exceptionally, 
no matter in what numbers, and the same 
general purpose would thereby have been 
achieved if even a very few Japanese had 
been included in order to take the force out 
of their argument. Needless offense, how- 
ever, was given, which more skillful hand- 
ling could probably have greatly attenuated, 
even had it not altogether removed its 
ground. It is certain that any efforts on our 
part to avoid giving offense to the pride 
of the Japanese have been heartily appre- 
ciated and seconded by the Mikado's gov- 
ernment, which desires the preservation of 
friendly relations as earnestly as does our 
own. Japan still owes us a debt of grati- 
tude; and though a certain section of her 
public opinion may be trying to efface its 



THE FAR EAST 113 

remembrance by directing attention to 
present indignities, enough recollection of 
former friendship still remains to render 
unlikely any sudden revulsion. 

If there is no reason to be pessimistic 
with regard to the future, undue optimism 
is hardly less dangerous. The present set- 
tlement of the immigration difficulties is of 
a strictly temporary nature. And while the 
Japanese government will for the present 
restrain emigration and continue to do so 
as long as it suits its convenience, the vital 
question at issue is kept in suspense and 
may at any time be reopened. Our policy 
has to take cognizance of these conditions, 
and our diplomatic position at its point of 
intersection between treaty and state rights 
has not yet achieved permanent results, nor 
established a broad harmonious foundation 
for our future relations with the Island 
Empire. 

The success of negotiations between na- 
tions usually depends on the concessions 
which may be made by either side in return 



114 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

for proffered equivalents. We have been 
unduly generous in the past in bestowing 
diplomatic favors without obtaining or even 
asking compensation. It is true that when, 
in 1894, we abandoned our extra-territorial 
privileges in Japan we obtained the treaty- 
right to regulate the emigration of laborers, 
upon which rests the justice of our present 
contention. But this right was not so clearly 
indicated and defined as might have been 
desirable, although at that time we could 
more easily have secured concessions than 
is possible to-day. 

Even during the late Russian war the 
more than benevolent neutrality and sym- 
pathy shown by us toward the Japanese, 
and the later abandonment of our legation 
at Seoul, which we were the first to give up 
in spite of our great interests in Korea, were 
favors freely granted without return. How- 
ever proper may have been our action in 
so doing — - and generosity on the part of 
nations is not always an unwise policy — 
it is conceivable that, had compensation 



THE FAR EAST 115 

been demanded, it would have been to 
Japan's interest, at a time when her na- 
tional energies were engaged in a great war, 
to have made us concessions which might 
have prevented the present difficulties from 
arising. Instead, we have lately found our- 
selves in a position where negotiations be- 
came necessary, and asking for favors when 
we had no longer any to offer in exchange. 

The demonstration made by our fleet's 
cruise to the Pacific and thence around the 
world has proved an act of audacious fore- 
sight. It is a commonplace to say that the 
surest guarantee for future peace is the 
maintenance of so large an armed strength 
as not to make it worth another nation's 
while to disturb it. 

But the Tokio government, however de- 
sirous to avoid war, was more likely to turn 
a deaf ear to possible popular clamor when 
conscious of the magnitude of its risk than 
in the case of an enterprise presenting no 
peril, while bellicose clamor on the part of 
the masses was also less likely to arise. 



116 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Frank recognition of the danger of war 
is a more certain means of preventing its 
occurrence than the refusal to admit such 
possibility. Such danger as exists to-day 
lies in chance incidents taking place on 
either side, as unfortunate as they may be 
unforeseen. The violence of a mob, the act 
of a lunatic, is sufficient, once popular pas- 
sions have been aroused. And we cannot 
afford to forget that in the event of conflict 
our most vulnerable spots would be Hawaii, 
where more than half the population is 
Japanese; Alaska, which in its remote- 
ness and uninhabited condition presents 
points of danger like another Saghalien to 
Russia; and the Philippines. With regard 
to the latter especially, the position of Japan 
would not be dissimilar to our own at the 
outbreak of the Spanish War. We had then 
no wish for the islands which force of cir- 
cumstances were to place in our possession. 
To-day the Japanese assure us in all good 
faith how remote is their desire to pos- 
sess them. Nor have we reason to doubt 



THE FAR EAST 117 

their word. Japan's hands are tied in Ko- 
rea, where a sullenly hostile population 
has caused them unforeseen difficulties. In 
Manchuria and China their course has 
been far from smooth, and the pugnacious 
insistency of the latter power in questions of 
Manchurian jurisdiction and other matters 
has afforded unexpected surprises. With 
Formosa barely pacified, any effort to ac- 
quire the Philippines would involve further 
drain on their already strained resources at 
a time when they are traversing a financial 
crisis and have to face budgetary troubles. 
Moreover, the issue of the war, in view 
of our present superior naval strength, 
would presumably be favorable to us. On 
our side there certainly exists no desire to 
spur it on. While Japan, as was proved by 
the peace of Shimonoseki, will for years 
smother insults until strong enough to 
avenge them, yet in spite of weighty consid- 
erations the future may cause present prob- 
abilities of peace to alter. The actual dis- 
parity in favor of our sea power will not long 



118 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

continue without greater efforts on our part. 
Nor can we forget that the failure of Japan 
to secure the much-coveted indemnity in her 
recent war was attributed largely to our in- 
tervention in the restoration of peace. The 
capture of any of our territory in the event 
of hostilities might easily appear to the 
Japanese imagination as a surety to be re- 
tained in pledge for an indemnity of which 
we had previously deprived them. 

Although ominous clouds impend, dan- 
ger will be remote if we do not neglect the 
natural advantages of our position, dip- 
lomatic as well as military. We have in 
the past willingly entered into cooperation 
with other powers in sanitary matters of 
mutual interest. A similar course com- 
mends itself in questions of emigration. 
The position of Australia, of New Zealand, 
and of western Canada in refusing Japanese 
coolie labor is in such matters entirely ana- 
logous to our own. In Australia the laws 
restricting Asiatic immigration are, if possi- 
ble, even more stringent than ours. But the 



THE FAR EAST 119 

gravity of the situation created by such hos- 
tility has impressed itself upon the common- 
wealth. Mr. Deakin's recent compulsory 
service measures, aiming to create a nation 
trained to arms, prove that his government 
fully realizes its responsibilities with regard 
to the dangers resulting from the attitude 
assumed. 

If only for future contingencies, we 
should seek closer interchange of views 
upon similar matters with the great self- 
governing British colonies bordering on the 
Pacific. Among obvious measures which 
commend themselves would be the appoint- 
ment of consuls-general at Melbourne, at 
Wellington, and at Ottawa, who should be 
diplomatic officers, in the same way that 
European governments send diplomatists 
as consuls to such capitals as Budapest 
and Calcutta. Our interests are too identi- 
cal not to be mutually reenforced. Nor 
could Great Britain regard otherwise than 
favorably the increase of our intimacy 
with her colonies, since measures concerted 



120 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

in common would add to the weight of any 
arguments that the course of diplomatic 
negotiations might bring forth. By mak- 
ing general the interest of any question, it 
would be plain to Japanese statesmen that 
wherever their position might be contrary 
to ours it would likewise be opposed to that 
of their ally's colonies. 

The necessity for taking such precautions 
arises, however, from our acquisition of the 
Philippines. Had we not these to defend, 
Japan would have been almost powerless 
against us. Possessing them, a different 
course of action imposes itself which bids 
us seek an understanding with Great Britain 
to maintain existing conditions and join in 
a mutual guarantee for the preservation 
thereof, a guarantee which it is likely 
enough that Japan, realizing her conse- 
quent impotence and desiring to identify 
herself with the other Great Powers, would 
herself subscribe to, as she lately has for the 
French colonies in Indo-China; for Japan 
diplomatically isolated would be powerless. 



THE FAR EAST 121 

The alliance between England and Japan 
may not be of indefinite duration. The 
mutual desire to resist Russian encroach- 
ments in China, which originally brought it 
about, now appears removed, and already 
conflicting interests and prejudices caused 
by Great Britain's imperial position seem 
prepared to assert themselves. The pres- 
tige justly gained by Japan through her 
recent war has extended over Asia, where 
populations once submissive have had in- 
stilled in them novel ideas of independence. 
However remote it may be from the minds 
of Japanese statesmen to profit by the new 
feeling of unrest which has made itself felt 
in India, it would be only human if con- 
sciousness thereof were coupled with any 
resentment that might be felt for the humili- 
ation suffered by their compatriots in British 
colonies. This feeling would naturally tend 
to loosen the bonds of an alliance which 
has more than accomplished the purpose for 
which it was originally intended. 

The future may well witness Japanese 



122 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

friendship inclining toward a nation like 
Germany. The essentially military fabric 
of both countries offers points of sympathy 
which receive support from the fact that no 
divergent interests separate the two powers, 
while many draw them together, not- 
ably the common dread of Russia. Now 
that all hope of establishing a German co- 
lonial empire in China has been abandoned, 
and her colony at Kiauchau remains like a 
beached vessel to mark the force of the wave 
which stranded it, there are no longer rival 
ambitions to clash. 

In spite of his early warnings against 
the yellow peril, the German Emperor has 
every reason to feel as much sympathy 
for the Japanese as for the Mohammedans, 
to whom he once announced his all-em- 
bracing friendship. Japan is better worth 
German unity than Morocco, and an alli- 
ance with her could be heralded as offering 
further guarantees for the preservation of 
peace. But we could not afford to regard 
this contingency with indifference. Should 



THE FAR EAST 123 

it ever approach consummation, German 
ambitions with regard to the Philippines 
may again be awakened under a more for- 
midable guise, and in such event any course 
for us other than a prompt understanding 
with Great Britain is likely to be disastrous 
to the preservation of our dependencies. 
Even without this possibility, which fortu- 
nately still belongs to the future, England 
provides for us the effective means of safe- 
guarding the possession of our colonies and 
forestalling the peril which unfriendly com- 
binations of powers present for us. 

In lesser degree our diplomacy may de- 
rive much benefit in strengthening our 
Asiatic position by a frank understanding 
with Russia. Now that the latter's Far 
Eastern ambitions have been curtailed, the 
two nations can find mutual advantage in 
upholding a defensive policy aimed at the 
preservation of existing conditions. Our 
interests are mutual in so many respects 
that a far-sighted policy would, perhaps, 
even waive the assertion of certain claims. 



124 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

however justified they may be, in return for 
a friendship of greater importance to the 
future of our position. Japan would hesi- 
tate in the assertion of any pretension on 
her part if she felt that we were assured of 
the joint support of Great Britain and 
Russia. Hence our desire to recognize 
Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria should 
take Russian ambitions into consideration. 
Especially at the present time, when that 
power is unable to assert an aggressive 
policy, such action on our part would be 
appreciated far more than it would have 
been a few years ago, or is likely ever to be 
in the future. It rests with our diplomacy 
to profit by opportunities when they are 
best worth seizing. The Far East is to us 
what the Levant has been to the European 
powers. In China our commerce has been 
intrenched by a century of effort. Mer- 
chants and missionaries have extended 
American enterprise throughout that em- 
pire, while at home our educational insti- 
tutions have been freely opened to Oriental 



THE FAR EAST 125 

students. We cannot, therefore, regard with 
indifference the impending industrial awak- 
ening of China. Our energy and our capi- 
tal have every right to participate therein at 
least on terms of equal footing with those 
of other powers ; and the recent efforts of 
American diplomacy to support the asser- 
tion of such right in the matter of a railway 
concession offer a welcome sign that the 
nation is awakening to the growing impor- 
tance of our over-sea interests, particularly 
in the Far East. Within late years we have 
taken a leading part both in virtually de- 
feating the desired apportionment of the 
Chinese Empire into rival spheres of so- 
called economic development and influence, 
and in forcing on other reluctant nations 
the policy of the "open door." It has 
rightly been our aim to preserve the Chinese 
markets open for all. We should continue to 
assert vigorously in the Far East a policy 
in conformity with the principles of equity 
and our own best interests, which in Asia 
are commercial and cannot be political. 



126 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

We should especially seek to continue to 
play a leading part as a friendly adviser of 
China. Nor ought this to be diiBBcult. Our 
political friendship has been manifested on 
frequent occasions, although the late repay- 
ment of the exaggerated indemnity claims 
made after the Boxer rising was but the 
correction of a former injustice, an example 
which other powers have not seen fit to fol- 
low. The recent developing of our Chinese 
service, and our creating a body of student 
interpreters from whose ranks it is hoped 
that future consuls in the Far East will be 
recruited, offer an indication of the increas- 
ing importance the Orient has rightly as- 
sumed in our foreign relations. It is to be 
hoped that every effort will be made to 
strengthen the prestige of our representation 
which counts for so much in the East. 

But if we have befriended China politi- 
cally, in other questions our action has been 
less amicable. Even though we need fear no 
military consequence of her possible dis- 
pleasure, the humiliation imposed upon Chi- 



THE FAR EAST 127 

nese in America has in recent years caused 
a boycott of our goods extending even to 
Singapore. With China, just as with Japan, 
tactful means should be found which would 
accomplish the result demanded by our 
labor in the Pacific States in a manner less 
offensive to Oriental dignity. Fortunately, 
a marked improvement has lately been wit- 
nessed in our relations with China, to which 
the present resentment felt by that country 
at the high-handed methods of Japan is 
perhaps not foreign. This cannot be alto- 
gether disagreeable to us ; and it should be 
the constant object of our diplomacy, even 
at the risk of seeming inconsistency, to avoid 
uniting the two great yellow powers by fur- 
nishing them with a common grievance. 

Our policy in the Far East thus finds it- 
self limited by certain existing factors im- 
posed by labor conditions and over which 
diplomacy has but a feeble control. Since 
they exist, however, a course of action 
becomes necessary for present and future 
intercourse. To extend our commercial in- 



128 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

terests, and to preserve the Philippines 
pending the decision with regard to their ul- 
timate fate, must be our purpose. The goal 
toward which our diplomacy should strive 
is to mitigate as far as possible the offense 
given by exclusion acts, while so intrench- 
ing our position as to minimize the risk of 
its ever being challenged. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE NEAR EAST 

Even before the recent revolution in 
Turkey, a decided revival of diplomatic 
interest in the affairs of the Near East had 
begun to be apparent. The conditions of 
disorder which so often in the past had fur- 
nished there the pretext for foreign inter- 
ference appeared more ominous when the 
danger clouds were for the time dissipated 
in other regions of the globe. A feeling of 
unrest leading to violence and anarchy had 
further spread over the Moslem countries 
from Morocco to Afghanistan. Never tran- 
quil even in orderly times, their chronic tur- 
bulence was once more excited. The East 
was beginning to appreciate the failure 
of Mohammedan institutions to renovate 
themselves in conformity with modern re- 
quirements, and its intelligence was realizing 



130 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

keenly the inferiority from which it suf- 
fered. A political seething connected with 
the idea of nationality and the victory of an 
Asiatic over a European power, and influ- 
enced by the constitutional struggle in Rus- 
sia, became everywhere apparent. Western 
forecasts regarding Oriental immutability 
were rapidly being disproved. 

Although almost our first foreign conflict 
had been with the Barbary States, tradition 
and interests alike would on the surface 
seem to counsel us aloofness from the Mo- 
hammedan countries. Having voluntarily 
refrained from whatever might entangle 
us in the internal affairs of Europe, how 
much more remote must appear the inter- 
nal affairs of the Near East! Such argu- 
ments would have been irrefutable before 
the Spanish War, and would still be so if 
our international position had remained 
unchanged and we could feel certain of 
preserving our former policy without refer- 
ence to the exigencies of a new situation. 
But the diplomatic action of a great power 



THE NEAR EAST 131 

is everywhere too closely interwoven to be 
separate and distinct in each country. A 
purely defensive diplomacy on the part of a 
great state is as much a heresy as is a navy 
built only for defense. 

The acute interest taken by the European 
nations in Turkish affairs has been not only 
because of political and commercial oppor- 
tunities there open, but also because the 
problem of an empire's dismemberment, 
which for so long seemingly presented itself 
as imminent, caused the statesmen of the 
Old World to realize that without the great- 
est circumspection in their action a con- 
flagration might be lit over the division of 
the spoils, setting all Europe ablaze. Even 
though we may regard the Near Eastern 
question as entirely foreign to us, it can 
hardly be anticipated that a European war 
resulting from it and upsetting all former 
balances of power could leave us completely 
indifferent. Our desire to avert such dan- 
ger is in fact second only to that of the Old 
World powers. It behooves us as well as 



132 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

them to take the proper precautions toward 
removing such causes as tend to disturb the 
peace. Although we may not choose to for- 
feit our independence of action by entering 
into present or future concerts of nations, 
American policy can no longer, as in the 
past, afford to be oblivious thereto. Seen 
in this light, the joint action of the Powers in 
the Near East, which for thirty years has 
contributed largely to maintaining peace 
if only by isolating its occasional conflicts, 
assumes new importance for us. We can 
hardly disinterest ourselves with impunity 
from events in a region where the interests 
of other nations with whom we are else- 
where intimately connected are in such 
close juxtaposition. The Near East is at 
one door of Europe and we are at the other. 
The distance is too slight to leave us uncon- 
scious of our neighborhood. 

In this connection another possibility 
presents itself as a living problem, even 
though to-day its contingency is remote. 
Only a few months ago, however, it looked 



THE NEAR EAST 133 

as if a new congress might become necessary 
to revise the thread worn Treaty of Berlin. 
Had this occurred, as the questions it 
would have been called upon to regulate 
are of wider than strictly European order, 
and as its aim would lie in the direction of 
permanently establishing the bases of inter- 
national harmony, we could not have been 
indifferent to its deliberations. Any effort 
towards the preservation of peace in any 
region of the world concerns us as well as 
Europe. It matters little that we have no 
direct interest in determining the status of 
territories formerly under Ottoman suze- 
rainty. We feel a very deep interest, first, in 
any measure contributing to securing uni- 
versal peace, and secondly, that no concert 
of nations should meet to decide questions 
of more than particular or local interest in 
any portion of the world without taking our 
views into consideration. 

Public opinion in the United States 
should distinguish sharply between spheres 
of influence with regard to our foreign 



134 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

\ policy and spheres of interest. There exist 
many regions of the globe where any acqui- 

I sition of territory, or single responsibility, 
would prove only an encumbrance for us. 
But there is none where we do not feel 
interested, however remotely. 

Our special right to participate in any 
international deliberations modifying or 
altering in any way the status of the Otto- 
man Empire is based, moreover, on the 
existing treaties we possess with Turkey, 
which cannot be changed without the con- 
sent of the contracting powers. Hence any 
alteration in the legal status of such terri- 
tory would almost inevitably entail a cor- 
responding modification of the numerous 
rights emanating from the ancient capitula- 
tions which we have assimilated by virtue 
of our treaties with the Sublime Porte. And 
while we may be indifferent to surrendering 
these, we cannot permit their abrogation to 
be effected by other powers without our 
consent, unless at the same time we are will- 
ing to permit other remaining rights, as well 



THE NEAR EAST 135 

as our international prestige, to be seriously 
jeopardized by such surrender. 

Although in 1878 our position as a great 
power was still not sufficiently established to 
warrant a representation at the Congress 
of Berlin, American over-sea interests have 
since been so enlarged, American influence 
so universally recognized, that we could not 
absent ourselves from another such confer- 
ence without endangering our legitimate 
influence in the world's affairs. Participa- 
tion would not, however, mean our being 
dragged into acquisitions of undesirable 
or indefensible territory. Certainly no Cy- 
prus nor Bosnia should tempt us or dis- 
tract our attention. Like France at Berlin 
in 1878, it should be our boast to leave such 
a conference with empty hands. Nor again 
would such participation by us mean entan- 
glement in the internal affairs of European 
/' v^tates. We have as little wish to so enmesh 
ourselves as a century ago. But we are 
unable to permit questions not of internal 
but of international order, which might 



136 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

endanger the peace of other powers with 
whom we are intimately connected, to be 
decided entirely apart from our knowledge 
and consent, without surrendering just so 
much of our influence as the question's im- 
portance in its international aspects may 
involve. 

It should further be our boast to employ 
the Republic's efforts wherever possible in 
the direction of justice and the extension 
of liberal ideas. To possess a true meaning 
in the world, our influence and civilization 
must not remain confined to a single hemi- 
sphere. Though its paramountcy in both 
the Americas has rightly been the cardinal 
point in our foreign policy, there is no 
reason why it should be restricted thereto. 
To refrain timidly from elsewhere assert- 
ino: ourselves will not add one iota to the 
strength of our position in the western 
hemisphere, where our claims repose on no 
other ultimate basis than that of force. 

But if a nation's hegemony can be as- 
serted only with the adequate backing of 



THE NEAR EAST 137 

strength, its pretensions to equality with 
other powers, especially when disinterested, 
may rest on more moral grounds. If the 
direction of our foreign policy in other 
regions of the world bears an ideal of justice 
in view, there is no reason why our influence, 
earning the respect due to its unselfishness, 
should not contribute toward the advance- 
ment of those general ideas of humanity 
and international morality with which we 
have always sympathized. And with the 
growth of our influence abroad will follow 
the extension of commercial interests in 
regions before unknown. All these causes 
contribute to the utility of our taking part 
in future international conferences and ex- 
changes of opinion, where our presence, 
particularly to Great Britain and France, 
would be welcome, while it is doubtful 
if any power would care deliberately to 
chpose to incur our displeasure by opposing 
our admission to the councils of great 
nations. 

Paradoxical as it may appear, the student 



138 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

of our national growth can hardly avoid the 
conclusion that just as our former weakness, 
with its dangers limited to a continent dis- 
tant from the rest of the world, had been 
our strength, our present strength, with the 
new responsibilities thrust upon us, and 
the rightly felt ambition to achieve great 
deeds, has proved a source of weakness to 
our material if not to our moral position. 
It is curious to observe that the vast ex- 
tension given within recent years to the in- 
ternational influence of the United States 
and to our supposed designs in other conti- 
nents, which abroad has attracted so much 
attention, has yet passed almost unnoticed 
at home, because of the slight consideration 
accorded to questions of foreign policy. 
The European nations, with keener sense of 
the scope of diplomacy, long since perceived 
the significance of our advent as a great 
power. Almost unknown to us we have 
been included in their new world-balance 
which has replaced the former continental 
equilibrium. Indeed, our foreign move- 



THE NEAR EAST 139 

ments are scanned abroad with far more 
critical attention than they receive in 
America. 

A case in point occurred in 1906 in the P 
elevation of our legation at Constantinople 
to the grade of an embassy. The impor- 
tance of this measure passed almost unno- 
ticed at home. But the ill-will it provoked, 
especially in a certain section of the con- 
tinental press, proved the consequence 
attached by the Old World to a step inter- 
preted as marking the entrance of America 
in the Near Eastern question. Europe, 
which jealously feared the appearance of 
another claimant in the then anticipated 
division of the spoils, realized the opportu- 
nity awaiting us in the Levant, where with 
no political traditions to continue, no stakes 
to defend, no territorial ambitions, entirely 
unpledged and free in our actions, a skillful \ 
diplomacy could win for us on the Bospho- 
rus the recognition of our policies in other 
quarters. 

The success of our position in Constanti- 



140 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

nople was fortunately never predicated on 
the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. 
We had no desire to see it divided, nor to 
watch its provinces gradually apportioned 
among the neighboring powers. It has al- 
ways been to our advantage to have Turkey 
preserved as one of the few neutral markets 
still open to the world, where a fair field could 
but be favorable to our foreign trade. Va- 
rious conditions, past and present, have con- 
spired together to prevent it from becoming 
a manufacturing state. For many years 
to come we need expect there no prohib- 
itive tariff to bar our products, such as pro- 
tects foreign markets and our own, while 
the alienation of Ottoman territory would 
have meant its probable inclusion within 
the customs wall of some foreign power. 

Our interests therefore coincided with 
those of the powers desiring the preserva- 
tion of Turkey. But not even her best 
friends believed it possible long to avert the 
doom which had appeared imminent. The 
revolution of July, 1908, exploded like a 



THE NEAR EAST 141 

bombshell to astonish the world and open 
a new chapter in the Near Eastern question. 
By its promise to make of Turkey a modern 
state in place of a decrepit despotism, it 
held forth the vision of a regenerated nation. 
The European powers, some in all sincerity, 
others not wishing to appear unfriendly, 
welcomed the advent of a constitutional gov- 
ernment. The empire which for two cen- 
turies diplomatists have regarded as the 
peculiar field for the exercise of their talents 
of division, appeared by a miracle of mir- 
acles to embark on a new life. For a 
moment it seemed as if the bond of Otto- 
man nationality founded upon the love for 
a common soil might henceforth unite 
without dissension the many creeds and 
races inhabiting Turkey, and bring to an 
end the conflict of racial ambitions fostered 
from without, which had made it a menace 
to the peace of Europe. 

To-day, a year after the establishment of 
constitutional government, if the aspirations 
of the leaders of the new movement in 



142 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Turkey are in certain respects less gener- 
ous, they rest, perhaps, upon a stronger 
foundation. The success of the revolution 
had been too sudden and overwhelming. 
It had not to fight its way against a grad- 
ually receding opposition, but triumphed 
almost at its birth. The elements of reac- 
tion later made themselves felt with the real- 
ization that the heritage of long years of 
miso^overnment could not be shaken off in a 
day. A band of young enthusiasts, many of 
them bred in exile, and without practical 
experience, found themselves at the head 
of a nation to govern which presented the 
most difficult problems of statesmanship, 
from without as much as from within. The 
ambitions of neighboring powers, the con- 
flict of races and religions, the ignorance of 
the masses, the ruined finances, an ineffi- 
' cient and frequently corrupt bureaucracy, 
were all elements to be reckoned with ; and 
the fact that as each problem had been 
the product of years, it was impossible to 
solve it in a day, has caused many to be 



THE NEAR EAST 143 

unduly pessimistic regarding the future of 
Turkey. 

There is no reason, however, to take such 
a dismal view of the situation. The neces- 
sary transition between the old order and 
the new will hardly be effected without 
many anxious moments. But the patriot- 
ism of the leaders of the reform movement 
in Turkey, and particularly the devotion 
to the constitutional cause of a disciplined 
and highly efficient army composed of the 
best elements in the nation, make one hope- 
ful that a land so richly endowed by na- 
ture, and whose dominant race is possessed 
of so many military and other virtues, will 
in time again assume its rightful place in 
the world. 

We can view with warm sympathy the 
successive steps in the evolution through 
which Turkey must necessarily pass to ac- 
complish this desired result. We can even, 
without prejudice to ourselves, extend it 
valuable aid when the proper time comes, 
by abandoning, as in Japan, the special 



144 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

rights of jurisdiction formerly acquired by 
treaty, and aid a new Turkey, in the mea- 
sure of our ability, to extricate itself from 
one of the burdens of its inheritance derog- 
atory to its sovereign rights. 

The existence of a liberal Turkey is wel- 
come to us both on sentimental and on 
material grounds. We should, indeed, prove 
unfaithful to our most ancient and most 
generous traditions if we failed to view with 
cordial satisfaction the success of a move- 
ment securing liberty, equality, and justice 
to a people hitherto deprived of the most 
elementary guarantees of government. Be- 
cause our history has served as a guide for 
other nations in their fight for freedom, 
they look toward us for sympathy in their 
period of struggle and for friendship in their 
success. When on the morrow of the pro- 
mulgation of the constitution the crowd in 
the streets of Constantinople cheered the 
American flag; when a marshal of the em- 
pire, the victorious hero of a former war, 
returning amid the enthusiastic demonstra- 



THE NEAR EAST 145 

tions of the multitude from an unjust exile, 
paid his first visit to the American ambas- 
sador as a tribute to the representative of a 
nation which had been a cradle of liberty 
and a refuge for the oppressed, it was be- 
cause we are regarded as possessing funda- 
mental feelings and traditions which must 
cause us to welcome the success of other 
nations who have followed our example in 
the desire for representative institutions. We 
have thus to fulfill a generous and pleasing 
role in no way contrary to our real interests. 
At the present time, when the demolition 
of the old order in Turkey causes every 
European nation to give an altogether fresh 
direction to its Near Eastern policy, we are < 
able to enter on an equal footing with other 
powers in availing ourselves of the oppor- ) 
tunities certain to arise with the industrial 
awakening of the Ottoman Empire. The 
system is fortunately shattered which in 
the past debarred from participation those 
who scrupled in their choice of methods. 
There is no longer to be the same disgrace- 



146 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

ful scrambling for concessions purchased 
through palace favorites which stained 
those who were most successful. A policy 
of equal opportunity for all will permit our 
enterprise to profit legitimately in what is, 
perhaps, the richest of undeveloped nations. 
Hence interest with sentiment counsels our 
viewing favorably the new government 
which in saving Turkey from dismember- 
ment has preserved it as an open market for 
the commerce of the world. 

So long as all our energy and capital were 
engaged in developing the United States, 
we had regarded foreign lands rather as 
convenient dumping-grounds for our sur- 
plus products than as countries where our 
industrial and financial influence could be 
continuously felt. Save along the Pacific 
coast and to a certain extent in the Carib- 
bean, the possibilities of great engineering 
works, the building of harbors and bridges 
and railways, the equipping of lighting, tele- 
phone, and industrial plants, hardly dawned 
upon our enterprise, while the possibili- 



THE NEAR EAST 147 

ties of financial operations abroad, and par- 
ticularly in extra-territorial countries, were 
still uncontemplated. If it has not been 
already reached, we are likely in the near 
future to attain a stage where, the consum- 
ing capacity of the country being reduced, 
there will come a plethora of production 
and of unemployed capital. It may even 
be said that the recent industrial depres- 
sion in the United States would have been 
less acute if its foreign trade had been 
greater and more widely distributed. The 
gigantic strides taken at home in recent 
years, however, have kept us from culti- 
vating till quite lately over-sea outlets for 
our production in the same way as other 
powers have done. Now that an impetus 
has at last been given to export trade, we 
are likely to find other interests strongly in- 
trenched in neutral markets, and our com- 
petitors appearing more formidable than 
would have been the case if our efforts to 
undersell them had been ripened by the 
experience of years. But in any event, our 



148 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

best openings will certainly be found in 
lands where no discriminating tariffs exist 
to favor home industry. 

The preservation of the Moslem nations 
as a fair field for all assumes fresh impor- 
j tance for us because of this. And the Near 
1 East presents enough commercial attrac- 
i tions to warrant its receiving far closer 
I attention from our trade. The European 
nations have better understood this advan- 
tage in the Levant, where they have strained 
every effort to secure the concession of 
public franchises. In the Orient, where 
commercial enterprise invariably passes 
through official channels, diplomacy has to 
concern itself with questions it elsewhere 
ignores. German diplomacy was the first 
to recognize this, and it was due largely to 
its able efforts that German interests in 
the past became so strongly intrenched in 
the Ottoman Empire. Our own commerce 
and enterprise, in spite of occupying a natu- 
rally favorable position to extend American 
trade and industry, has practically neglected 



THE NEAR EAST 149 

a field where, only a few years ago, our 
exports were not one twentieth those of 
Belgium. It is interesting to note that one 
of the causes contributing to the success 
of Belgian diplomacy in securing valuable 
concessions in foreign countries has been 
that nation's political weakness. American 
enterprise would be similarly benefited by 
our remoteness and disinterestedness as a 
nation. 

Our participation in industrial competi- 
tion would be welcomed by a government 
aiming to distribute its favors widely and 
realizing that we possess no territorial am- 
bitions over the Turkish Empire. The rich 
grants from which in recent years Ger- 
man capital has benefited in Anatolia and 
Mesopotamia, British in the Aidin Valley, 
and French in Syria, are by no means ex- 
hausted. Thousands of miles of railway re- 
main to be built and railway material to be 
ordered. The whole northern portion of Asia 
Minor and the fertile valleys of the centre 
are still destitute of adequate means of com- 



150 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

munication, although it is notorious that 
such a road would traverse the richest part 
of Turkey. The reason why it was left un- 
built will also serve as an example to explain 
the chance for our enterprise to profit from 
the peculiar political position we enjoy in the 
Near East. The first route for the Bagdad 
,^ Railroad had been planned to pass through 
this region. But Russia, unwilling to see 
n the interests of a powerful nation perma- 

nently established close to her own Cauca- 
sian frontiers, and in a district over which 
she was supposed to cherish ultimate ambi- 
, tions, demanded the immediate repayment 
of the remainder of the Turkish war indem- 
nity owing her since 1878. As this was im- 
possible, she obtained instead the guarantee 
for such road to be built either by Russian 
or Turkish enterprise, while the Sultan re- 
scinded his first offer and granted the Ger- 
man concession by the less favorable route 
through the Taurus Mountains, and thence 
across the semi-desert from Aleppo to Bag- 
dad. The reasons which animated Russia 



THE NEAR EAST 161 

to take such a position would not be so 
likely to militate against American inter- 
ests. Hence our very aloofness from politi- 
cal ambitions in the East should stand us in 
good stead. In the numerous concessions 
for public franchises of every nature which 
still remain to be granted in the Near East- 
ern countries, while we may anticipate com- 
mercial rivalry, our enterprise will hardly 
suffer from political jealousy. On the con- 
trary, we should obtain the aid in such ven- 
tures of a nation like Russia, which, without 
the ability to profit commercially herself, 
would prefer to see our interests benefited 
rather than those of other powers. In the 
Near East almost as much as in the extreme 
Orient our interests may work in harmony 
with those of Russia. 

Opportunities thus await American capi- 
tal and commerce in the Levant which may 
be further increased by judicious means. 
The establishment of schools in the Orient i 
has offered a recognized method of extend- / 
ing the national influence of powers so doing. ' 



152 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Without governmental aid American mis- 
sionary establishments scattered through- 
out Turkey have accomplished the same 
purpose and extended among natives the 
use of the English language. Their util- 
ity could in certain respects be still further 
augmented. Many members of our cham- 
bers of commerce contribute in their pri- 
vate capacity to the support of the missions 
abroad. It would appear to be supplement- 
ing the influence and usefulness of the lat- 
ter if a means of cooperation could be found 
whereby selected mission pupils would be 
assured a livelihood in advancing American 
trade interests. In addition to the instruc- 
tion now imparted, commercial courses 
might be given which would prepare schol- 
ars as competent agents for our business 
enterprises. Among the present hindrances 
to the extension of American trade in the 
Levant is the absence of properly equipped 
natives who alone can push it in the interior. 
In our mission schools, which already ac- 
complish much useful and beneficial work. 



THE NEAR EAST IBS 

we possess the nucleus at hand to remedy 
this deficiency. Next to Turkey, and in spite 
of its present anarchy, Persia offers the most 
attractive outlook in the commercial future 
of the Near East, as an almost entirely un- 
developed country possessed of natural re- 
sources, where only the most rudimentary 
means of transportation and communica- 
tion exist, and where possibilities of the 
same character as in the Ottoman Empire 
await foreign enterprise. In a land where 
the dominant influence is that of Russia 
in the north and England in the south, 
we should be able to advance our com- 
mercial interests without incurring the 
political jealousy of two powers that are 
friendly toward us. The recent Anglo- 
Russian agreement stipulated that central 
Persia should be left as a zone between the 
spheres of influence of either nation. There 
can be no question that both England and 
Russia would choose to see American inter- 
ests established in this buffer region in pre- 
ference to those of other likely powers. 



154 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

The scope and direction for our diplomacy 
is therefore apparent, if our enterprise and 
capital can be induced to venture into this 
new field and reap the benefits which free- 
dom from political ambitions should obtain 
for us. 

While geographically far removed from 
the Near East, the conditions prevailing 
in Morocco align it with other Moham- 
medan countries as a non-manufacturing 
state with yet undeveloped resources. Al- 
though recent events have partly removed 
it from the strife of political competition, 
while the state of anarchy in which the coun- 
try has been plunged during late years 
has made the extension of any commerce 
almost impossible, there is reason to anti- 
cipate that greater tranquillity may in the 
future prevail and peace be restored to a 
distracted land. The guarantee of a fair 
field for all nations was among the most 
fortunate achievements of the Algeciras 
Conference, although we unfortunately re- 
fused to avail ourselves of the proffered 



THE NEAR EAST 155 

share in the state bank of Morocco, which 
would have secured for us a favorable posi- 
tion to exert influence in behalf of American 
enterprise. But proper diplomatic support 
may yet place us on an equal footing with 
other states in the future award of public 
works and the distribution of concessions. 

Our diplomacy skillfully handled can 
perhaps still find in Morocco a pawn to 
be utilized for advantages to be gained in 
other quarters. We need only remember 
the compensations secured by Great Britain, 
Italy, and Spain in surrendering to France 
their more or less shadowy Moroccan claims, 
to realize that, possibly, even at this late 
hour, we can secure certain advantages 
from the latter power in regions of closer 
interest to us, while, without injury to our- 
selves, we further possess the welcome op- 
portunity of being of service to Spain in her 
special ambitions over northern Morocco. 

The Near East is by no means the remote j / 
region it has so long seemed to us. Diplo- 
matically and commercially, advantages are 



156 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

there presented which in the past we have 
been slow to cultivate. It is natural that 
Europe should have forestalled us in fos- 
tering relations with the Moslem powers; 
but for us longer to neglect the opportuni- 
ties there open, and allow our diplomatic 
and trade intercourse with the Levant to 
continue in its present undeveloped state, 
is unworthy of a great and ambitious na- 
tion. With the extension everywhere given 
to the protective-tariff system, the few neu- 
tral markets remaining will be increasingly 
prized. Turkey, Persia, and Morocco offer 
lucrative opportunities to our enterprise 
and to the extension of our influence. We 
are still in time to profit by the possibilities 
there open, while the natural advantages 
we enjoy by reason of our remoteness and 
political disinterestedness place us in a pe- 
culiarly favorable position to find support 
for our policies, and aid for our industrial 
enterprises in lands where our advent would 
be welcomed in preference to that of other 
powers. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE AND THE STATE 
DEPARTMENT 

The brains and energy of the nation have 
been largely absorbed, during the last cen- 
tury, by its industrial expansion. Whereas 
in the Old World they went by preference to 
the service of the State, with us they have 
gone rather into business life. The insecur- 
ity of government employment was able to 
offer but a scanty equivalent for the prizes 
awarded to success in industry and com- 
merce. Public services stagnated while in 
all other directions the current of progress 
bore the country swiftly along. The funda- 
mental reason for any inferiority in our gov- 
ernmental efficiency has been the political 
nature of its recruitment, with the resulting 
conditions little conducive to permanence 
or training. The disadvantage of utilizing 



158 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

national services as instruments of politi- 
cal reward, even though native talent has 
occasionally compensated for lack of expe- 
rience, requires no comment here. For 
diplomacy, however, there has been and 
still is a certain justification. Apart from 
our scarcity of the prizes of political life, 
which other nations are able to dispense 
more lavishly, we have felt a certain pride 
in the fact that our diplomatists stand for 
the best traditions of American citizenship 
rather than as the representatives of a caste. 
The example of Franklin is still a living 
one. Diplomacy, moreover, is no esoteric 
mystery, and the qualities of shrewdness and 
balance apparent in our business and polit- 
ical intercourse are essential to the skillful 
negotiator. There is no reason why any 
administration should restrict the selection 
of its ambassadors to the exclusive choice 
of candidates appointed thirty or forty 
years previously, as is the case in certain 
continental services. There is especially 
no likelihood of any American government 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 159 

SO doing. A rapidity of action and success 
is still manifest in our public life. We have 
slight respect for the slow gradations 
which lead in older nations to positions 
of dignity. In examining our diplomacy 
as it now is, these elements of actuality 
have to be considered. The problem is not 
to devise an ideal service in an ideal state, 
but to increase the efficiency of existing 
methods and adapt them, where necessary, 
to modern requirements. 

The former idea of utilizing the foreign 
service as part of the spoils system sufficed, 
however inadequately, for our requirements 
so long as external questions were of simple 
order. Even then certain elements of per- 
manence and continuance of policy were 
found to be necessary, and both the Depart- 
ment of State and several of our missions 
abroad contained men whose presence out- 
lasted any administration. It seems likely 
that this tendency will increase in the fu- 
ture. No general can win a battle without 
lieutenants, and the advantages of a skilled 



160 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

rank and file in diplomacy, as in other public 
services, has become more widely appreci- 
ated. Recent efforts in this direction have 
certainly given considerable impetus to a 
movement which must commend itself to 
all intelligent observers. 

The future success of our foreign policy 
will undoubtedly depend in great measure 
upon the skill of our diplomacy. The wel- 
fare of the nation at large is indeed far more 
intimately bound thereto than may be com- 
monly believed. An idea has been widely 
prevalent that with the increase of rapid 
means of communication and the diffusion 
of news through the press the importance of 
diplomats was on the wane. Ambassadors 
were pictured as clerks at the end of tele- 
graph wires. Had diplomacy been unable 
to renovate its eighteenth-century garb of 
court intrigue, this might have been true. 
But the proof of its utility is that it has 
conformed itself to modern requirements. 
It has become economic where economic 
questions were at issue. It has arranged cus- 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 161 

toms schedules; it has framed discriminat- 
ing tariffs and forged the weapons for com- 
mercial warfare. It has served the ends of 
finance and industry. The preservation of 
peace and the diplomatic preparation for 
war are to-day but its occasional concern. 
It is the will of the sovereign people, no 
longer the whim of kings, that determines 
the graver questions which now preoccupy 
it. Herein diplomatists can act only as in- 
termediaries, with no power save to register 
decisions or transmit information. The 
real scope of diplomacy is both narrower 
and deeper, — narrower in effecting the 
settlement of unimportant current ques- 
tions that are daily met with in inter- 
national relations; deeper in contributing 
to lay the broad foundations for a na- 
tion's future action by aiding to form its 
opinion in foreign policy. Herein it be- 
comes the instrument of statecraft in inter- 
national relations. Its duty to keep the 
central government informed of everything 
of interest abroad should serve future as 



162 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

well as present. And since popular passions 
cannot be causelessly stirred, it is the pro- 
vince of diplomacy to see that such occasion 
should never arise without good reason. 
Diplomatists act thus as the scouts of na- 
tions as well as the negotiators; and any 
line of foreign policy which does not take 
into view their action is hardly likely to 
achieve success. The creation of a diplo- 
macy able to supply the mechanism for the 
assertion of our foreign policy thus com- 
mends itself as a corollary to our future 
position in the world. We have built up a 
great navy which now provides the material 
reserve upon which to base the means of 
enforcing our contentions ; but the navy is 
incomplete without building up our diplo- 
matic service and making of it a useful force 
in the national life. 

The improvements which remain to be 
effected involve no radical changes alien 
alike to our traditions and our habits of 
thought. The foundations of reform which 
have lately been laid in so many directions 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 163 

have been inaugurated as well in the foreign 
services with a view to securing that har- 
monious cooperation of effort essential to 
success. 

The necessity existing for reform arises 
from the continuance of certain methods that 
have survived the conditions for which they 
were originally intended. While a perma- 
nent service is able more easily to renovate 
itself in conformity with new necessities, 
a transient one can rarely do more than 
pass to its successor the methods it has re- 
ceived from its predecessor. The efficiency 
of to-day only too easily degenerates into 
the sterility of to-morrow, and the utility 
of any governmental branch finds itself cur- 
tailed because its development has not cor- 
responded with the growth of other national 
activities. While our diplomacy has hitherto 
amply sufficed for the disposition of cur- 
rent questions, it has hardly as yet adapted 
itself to the new conditions which confront 
us, or exercised its full scope as an instru- 
ment in the nation's welfare. 



164 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

The spirit animating a service is the ele- 
ment most conducive to its efficiency, and 
its infusion into a body can alone weld the 
latter into a homogeneous whole capable 
of high achievements. The problem is how 
to reconcile the conditions of permanence 
necessary for this spirit with the peculiar 
exigencies imposed by our political system. 
The past has left an unfortunate heri- 
tage in the artificial separation not only 
of kindred branches, but of different divi- 
sions of one service. The remembrance of 
a former and purely political method of 
recruitment of all officials still causes our 
diplomatic posts abroad to feel perhaps too 
isolated from one another, and not as parts 
of one great system bound together by com- 
mon action inspired by a common purpose. 

The diplomatic service, as has been stated, 
should be the eyes and ears of the nation 
in its contact with foreign powers. While 
journalism has to a certain extent taken its 
place in the communication of news, even at 
the present day, especially in the older coun- 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 165 

tries, a diplomatist can reach sources not 
accessible to the press. Information of na- 
tional interest is usually, however, of a dif- 
ferent order from the current news of the 
press. Its acquisition and its transmission 
in the shape of studied reports treating of 
every phase in the life of a country count 
among the elements which in foreign diplo- 
matic services make most for their utility. 
The subsequent diffusion of such reports in 
the form of confidential prints circulated 
in the service engenders a healthy rivalry 
which links the post closer together by keep- 
ing them informed with regard to events in 
other lands and the character of the work 
done by other missions. 

In giving greater attention to junior 
diplomatic oflScers the administration has 
wisely recognized in them the element 
most essential to permanence in the ser- 
vice. The importance of a body of capa- 
ble secretaries is felt especially in a service 
such as ours, where the great posts are 
usually granted to those who have gained 



16G AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

prominence at home. A high degree of 
efficiency can be secured only by the pre- 
sence of a permanent element more famil- 
iar with diplomatic traditions than could be 
expected of envoys often fresh from civil 
life. The art of diplomatic forms is acquired 
mainly by experience and training, and the 
value of such knowledge, somewhat alien to 
our habits of thought, cannot be over-em- 
phasized in view of the undue sensitiveness 
which characterizes the international rela- 
tions of the continental powers. The an- 
cient tradition of the "point of honor" has 
survived in the offense so easily taken, espe- 
cially by European nations, at any departure 
from the conventions of diplomacy. An 
ambassador, in spite of otherwise signal 
ability, may easily find the efficiency of his 
mission impaired through having given un- 
intentional offense by some trifling breach 
of form. In this lies the need for an efficient 
body of secretaries acquainted with tradi- 
tions and able properly to embellish the phra- 
seology of an envoy whose early training 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 167 

may not have sufficiently prepared him for 
the necessary suavity of a diplomatic style. 
By far the most serious element preju- 
dicial to the unity of our diplomacy lies, 
however, in the complete division which 
separates the diplomatic service from the 
Department of State. In the army we have 
adopted the system of interchange between 
the line and the general staff; but in our 
foreign and departmental services, the meth- 
ods of recruitment and promotion being 
entirely different, we have not yet been able 
to follow the example of other nations who 
have either fused or assimilated these in 
grade. In Italy, for instance, by a recent 
radical reform, all officials at the Ministry 
in Rome have been given either diplomatic 
or consular rank, varying with their posi- 
tion. In every European foreign office, 
moreover, interchange is encouraged be- 
tween service at home and abroad, thus 
bringing the personnel of the two branches 
of one service into close cooperation. With 
us, although a wise innovation now requires 



168 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

all new diplomatic appointees to undergo a 
brief period of instruction in the depart- 
ment, the subsequent separation is com- 
plete. While the civil-service regulations 
protecting departmental officials render later 
assimilation difficult, means could proba- 
bly be found to obviate this impediment 
and bring about a closer fusion than now 
exists, to the advantage of both services. 
Reform within the diplomatic service can 
only go hand in hand with reform in the 
department, and either is well-nigh useless 
without the other. 

With the growing accumulation of work, 
the limitations of human energy must make 
themselves felt more and more. When, a 
century and a quarter ago, John Jay be- 
came Secretary of State, his only assistants 
were two clerks. It is a striking tribute to 
the devotion to duty of our cabinet officers 
that even to this day they have retained so 
great a body of work on their own shoulders. 
But in spite of the aid of assistant secre- 
taries, actual conditions still seem to impose 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 169 

an unfair tax upon their energy. Amid the 
rapidly increasing volume of foreign affairs, 
a body of specialists with diplomatic train- 
ing would permit the Secretary of State and 
his immediate assistants to give greater 
attention to the more important questions, 
permitting matters of routine and special 
knowledge to be treated by competent ex- 
perts. Of late this necessity has impressed 
itself on nearly all the European foreign 
offices, which have been reorganized with 
a view to enlarging the responsibilities of 
juniors and the specialization of bureaus 
along political-geographical lines. Where 
formerly the entire labor devolved on the 
ministers and under-secretaries, who utilized 
their assistants in a purely clerical capacity, 
this order of work has been reversed, and 
the latter are now given opportunities for 
proving their worth. 

The great advantage in any specializa- 
tion of bureaus is that it creates a body of 
experts with detailed knowledge of the af- 
fairs of foreign countries. The result has 



170 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

been to obtain a certain standard of action, 
a certain norm of method, and coordination 
of parts, which in the conduct of affairs of 
state takes the place of genius. Ministers 
of foreign affairs abroad are not depend- 
ent on clerks alone to second or to inform 
them, but can rely on the technical advice of 
skilled officials possessing expert and usu- 
ally personal acquaintance with the nations 
whose affairs they are specially called upon 
to handle. In Europe the foreign offices are 
recruited in the same manner as the diplo- 
matic services. Their staff rises to, and 
interchanges with, similar grades in diplo- 
macy. Their bureaus are presided over by 
ministers and ambassadors. Their tradi- 
tions are inspired by centuries of precedent. 
It is obvious that a weight of moral au- 
thority would therefore be attached to the 
recommendations of the chief subordinate 
officers which no politically constituted 
cabinet would override without good cause. 
Our own State Department, through no 
fault of its own, can hardly as yet aspire 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 171 

to the same authority in its recommen- 
dations to Congress. Cognate to this there 
arises a more important question. It has 
often been remarked that we may demand 
of foreign states that they live up to treaty 
obligations which we ourselves are unable 
to enforce. Our mixed order of government 
contains unquestionably an element of 
weakness in the occasional clash between 
federal and state power. The equity of our 
contentions abroad can at any time be 
undermined by the inability of the govern- 
ment to exercise its authority over sovereign 
states. This problem, which only lately 
assumed a pressing form, is likely to be 
increasingly encountered with the growth of 
our foreign intercourse. Among the reasons 
which hitherto have militated against any 
surrender by the states of their sovereign 
rights has been a constitutional unwilling- 
ness to see the executive power increased. 
The eighteenth-century conception at the 
basis of our Constitution looked to a balance 
of the different governmental parts some- 



172 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

what in the nature of a diplomatic equi- 
librium. New accretions of power by any 
governmental branch could be viewed only 
as being at the expense of its other divisions, 
and contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. 
Any weakening in the assertion of state 
rights appeared to signify a corresponding 
increase in the power of the executive. But 
this held true only because the adminis- 
trative branches of the government were 
directly subservient to the executive and 
exclusively responsible thereto. Cabinet 
ministers are still secretaries in practice as 
in name, and as such theoretically presi- 
dential clerks. If the states, therefore, were 
ever to waive any portion of their sovereign 
rights in favor of the federal government, 
yet without unduly augmenting the execu- 
tive power, it could be done only by increas- 
ing the authority of certain departments 
and removing these as much as possible 
from the sphere of politics. The formation 
upon a non-partisan basis of a permanent 
diplomatic service and State Department 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 173 

would appear to offer an advantageous 
solution of the problem of equalizing the 
extension of power accruing to the execu- 
tive through any abrogation of state rights. 
The increase of presidential power would 
be balanced by the fact that any exercise 
of such authority could be invoked only 
through the agency of a department semi- 
independent of the executive, and, save at 
its head, independent of political change. 

The close cooperation not only between 
the different ramifications of one service, but 
between the different services of a govern- 
ment, is the condition essential to success, 
and is especially necessary in an adminis- 
trative personnel such as our own, composed 
both of permanent and of temporary officials 
whose maintenance in office depends on the 
party in power. The efficiency of our for- 
eign service is conditional as well upon its 
relations with the other branches of the 
government. The ability and devotion of 
officials finds its scope restricted without 
such cooperation of effort. A line of foreign 



174 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

policy is frequently adopted in conformity 
with the means at a government's disposal. 
To assert a pretension impossible to en- 
force exposes the nation to the danger of 
humiliation. A close cooperation between 
departments of War, Navy, and State thus 
becomes necessary. And while this is al- 
ready obtained at cabinet meetings, there 
are numerous problems that could advan- 
tageously be discussed by experts of each 
department, who would then be in better 
position to advise their respective chiefs. 
The general naval board instituted a few 
years ago furnishes the type of a similar 
advisory council which could to advantage 
include representatives of the three depart- 
ments concerned. 

Opportunity for further cooperation 
would appear to present itself in the rela- 
tions between the Departments of State and 
Justice. At present, the Secretary of State 
is usually apprised through a foreign envoy 
at Washington of cases concerning citizens 
of his nation, and once such affairs have 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 175 

been taken up diplomatically, they add to 
the labors of the government. If, however, 
the federal attorneys throughout the coun- 
try were instructed to report to the State 
Department all cases concerning foreign 
subjects, it might frequently be possible to 
settle difficulties out of court before they 
had attracted public or diplomatic atten- 
tion and assumed a form complicating their 
solution or possibly even embittering inter- 
national relations. 

Our foreign policy is destined by the very 
basis of American national existence to be 
developed amid conditions differing from 
those prevalent elsewhere. In European 
states it lies within the power of the exe- 
cutive to frame alliances without having 
recourse to parliamentary approval, unless 
budgetary considerations be involved. A 
British Cabinet is able to negotiate a mili- 
tary treaty wi'th Japan unknown to the Brit- 
ish nation, and even republican France can 
sign an alliance with Russia the articles of 
which still remain a secret. With us the 



176 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

Senate's necessary ratification, and the con- 
sequent publicity in the case of all agree- 
ments of a binding nature, entail a radically 
different procedure. There can be no ques- 
tion that the Senate's action has, in the main, 
proved beneficial. If its decisions have not 
always been marked by an appreciation of 
our future needs, as in rejecting the pur- 
chase of St. Thomas, as a rule it has had a 
very clear comprehension of where lay the 
nation's interests. Nor is it either likely or 
desirable that it should divest itself of any 
of its power in our foreign relations. As a 
permanent committee, fairly representative 
of the country at large, it gives the seal of 
national approval to our policy abroad. 

It may be hoped withal that the present 
tendency to remove certain questions from 
party considerations will more and more 
find useful application in foreign affairs. 
The Monroe Doctrine, which has always 
been regarded as a non-partisan measure, 
affords a precedent for this. The European 
nations, divided internally along party 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 177 

lines, have yet achieved a stability of policy 
in their foreign relations and in questions 
of defense. Any other course on our part 
would be parading to the world dissensions 
where it is most important that none ex- 
ist. Our external policy should be national 
and not partisan. Whatever be its trend, 
it should at all times have behind it the 
support of the entire country. Of late there 
has been a fortunate disappearance of 
that lack of sympathy which long existed 
between Congress and the Department of 
State. The good will of the Senate being 
essential, it is only wisdom to take counsel 
of its views beforehand and avoid a repeti- 
tion of so unfortunate an incident as the de- 
feat of the arbitration treaties a few years 
ago. Nowhere is close cooperation between 
the different branches of government more 
important than in diplomatic questions, 
where the nation ought to present a united 
front. Nowhere is any misunderstanding 
so likely to be fatal to our foreign policy or 
so disastrous to the efficiency of the ser- 



178 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

vice. Strength at home permits of strength 
abroad, and the department's complete har- 
mony with Congress is the primary con- 
dition for diplomatic success. It is an 
unfair tax on any Secretary of State to 
demand that in addition to attending to 
administrative duties he be called upon 
to appear personally before the Senate and 
House committees on Foreign Relations. 
This work could be accomplished as well 
by a congressional secretary charged with 
explaining details and answering questions 
of foreign policy. An official who could act 
as the recognized permanent link between 
the Senate and House committee, at whose 
constant disposal he would be, and the De- 
partment of State, ready to give to the na- 
tion's representatives the information they 
desired, would be able to avoid misappre- 
hensions and errors on either side, and effect 
that close cooperation between the execu- 
tive and legislative branches of the govern- 
ment which is indispensable to the highest 
success. 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 179 

A more intimate union of sympathy 
would further appear desirable between the 
department and the nation at large. The 
press has furnished a great medium of 
communication between the government 
and the country, and, with the growth of 
democratic ideas, its importance has been 
enlarged and its powers strengthened. It 
therefore becomes of national interest to 
possess a press ably directed and well in- 
formed, which may intelligently influence 
the masses. Our people have been too little 
accustomed to judge of foreign affairs. 
Often they have not fully appreciated the 
significance of phases in international rela- 
tions, or again have over-emphasized their 
importance. The creation of a qualified 
press bureau in the Department of State, as 
the recognized channel of communication 
between the government and the public in 
all matters of foreign policy, would remove 
a part of the burden which the reception 
of newspaper correspondents still imposes 
upon our public men. The views of the 



180 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

government on questions of foreign policy 
could be given to the country through the 
medium of some such channel as those 
which continental foreign offices possess, 
and which would allow public opinion to be 
held in restraint or prepared for any course 
of action or event. An official whose sole 
duty would be to inform the press of our 
national necessities in questions of foreign 
policy could, without in any way improp- 
erly interfering with the independence of 
its judgment, exert a healthy influence in 
educating the country by its means to an 
intelligent appreciation of our international 
relations. 

With our new world-wide responsibilities, 
the cultivation of a competent public opin- 
ion in questions of foreign policy has be- 
come an urgent necessity. On the one hand 
the patriotism of the great majority of the 
people is too easily led astray by unreason- 
ing enthusiasms which reflect greater credit 
on the generosity of its feeling than on 
its mature judgment. On the other there 



THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE 181 

exists the small minority of those who cavil 
at every manifestation of our influence or 
authority abroad. Between the two re- 
mains to be formed an enlightened and in- 
intelligent body of opinion competent to 
judge questions of foreign policy in the 
same way as it judges questions of interior 
policy. The press should furnish the vehi- 
cle for the diffusion of such opinion. But 
with a few noteworthy exceptions, it has not 
yet displayed the same intelligence in con- 
sidering our foreign interests that it mani- 
fests in domestic matters. It is still inclined 
to treat such questions with a levity or a 
sensationalism which contrasts unfavora- 
bly with the balanced judgment of serious 
European journals. Keenly avid for news, 
it has felt less interest in discerning the 
importance of the information published, 
or in weighing its consequences below the 
surface of sensation. It still remains pro- 
vincial and inadequate to the dignity to 
which it should properly aspire in its 
functions. 



182 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

While the remedy for this condition rests 
ultimately with the nation, which has not 
yet realized the importance of foreign ques- 
tions, the Department of State through the 
proposed press bureau ought to aim as well 
to educate the country to a more intelligent 
appreciation of our interests abroad. In 
a democracy such as ours, public opinion 
provides the final sanction against which 
no government can rule. It becomes of the 
highest consequence that this opinion be 
intelligently formed, in order that it may 
weigh with discernment the needs of the 
nation in its relations with the world. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE FUTURE OF OUR INTERNATIONAL 
POSITION 

Our energy, our resources, and that 
force of circumstance known as destiny 
have hitherto contributed to carry us into 
the forefront of nations. Our rightful place 
has been won almost without present effort. 
The Civil War made us a great nation be- 
cause it proved that we possessed the spirit 
of national sacrifice. The Spanish War, 
with its diplomatic significance out of all 
proportion to its military unportance, noti- 
fied the world that we were a great power. 
But though possessing the material founda- 
tion which entitles us to our new situation, 
and though filled with a lofty resolution 
which has hitherto saved the nation's ac- 
tion, even when mistaken, from ever being 
ignoble, our preparation for the new order 



184 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

of responsibilities before us has been inade- 
quate, and we remain handicapped by a sys- 
tem no longer in conformity with actual 
requirements. We stand to-day at a transi- 
tion point where, feeling only the presenti- 
ment of our high destiny, we trust rather 
to chance and the wisdom of the moment 
than to conscious effort to direct our 
course. 

Every age is as much trustee for the future 
as it is heir to the past. Foresight is an 
essential quality of statesmanship, and a 
government would be remiss in its duty if it 
failed to take into consideration the needs 
of later generations. American foreign pol- 
icy of to-day should be based not only on 
the expediency of the moment, but on the 
necessity of maintaining our international 
position in the manner best calculated to 
prepare for the future which properly 
awaits us. 

External problems of policy can never be 
separated from their internal significance, 
and both the material and moral aspects of 



OUR INTERNATIONAL POSITION 185 

a foreign policy must be either the result or 
the cause of similar tendencies within the 
nation, and inevitably react on each other. 
With the growth of our international rela- 
tions such elements will become increas- 
ingly important. Whatever necessity we 
may at present experience for the assertion 
of our influence abroad can only augment 
in time. In less than a half century our 
population should be one hundred and fifty 
millions; were our territory as thickly set- 
tled as Germany, it would be nine hundred 
millions. 

The problem lies in moulding a policy 
which will gauge the nation's present and 
future requirements in conformity with the 
means it has and is likely to possess. Cer- 
tain tendencies which must influence our 
future course are already apparent. A grow- 
ing industry will strengthen our interest 
in the world's markets, and as we become 
more dependent upon our over-sea trade, 
closer scrutiny will inevitably be given to 
foreign and colonial problems now remote, 



186 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

and to the navy as a protecting accompani- 
ment of commerce. 

The tendency toward increased arma- 
ments has received fresh strength from re- 
cent developments. Economic reasons will 
probably one day place a curb upon their 
further extension, just as economic reasons 
provide in ultimate analysis the necessity 
for sea power. But forecasts into the future 
can, for the present, neglect any schemes of 
disarmament, and to propose these prema- 
turely would be more likely to defeat their 
purpose than to aid it. The rapid growth 
of our fleet in recent years makes it safer 
to presume that the efforts which have 
carried us into our present place among 
naval powers will not soon be discontin- 
ued. American diplomacy has every reason 
to anticipate from it the assistance which 
armed strength alone is able to confer. 

Whatever the future may hold in store 
for us, we need anticipate as little the birth 
of an order of events likely to transform 
us into a world-conquering power as one 



OUR INTERNATIONAL POSITION 187 

which will permit the nation to continue its 
tranquil policy pursued before the Spanish 
War. Our external problems will diminish 
only in so far as increased force has made 
of us a more redoubtable antagonist. While 
certain of our pretensions are for this rea- 
son less likely to encounter resistance than 
before, consciousness of strength may also 
lead to difficulties which would once have 
been avoided. A world position inevitably 
entails world responsibilities. 

Whatever new questions may in time 
arise, the present problems that confront 
us are not likely to be dismissed soon. The 
extension given to the Monroe Doctrine in 
recent years is certain to make continual de- 
mands on our vigilance, even if no stronger 
measures become necessary. Coupled there- 
with, the building of the Panama Canal has 
widened our national interests and placed 
the countries bordering on the Caribbean in 
the same relation toward us as was formerly 
Cuba alone. The necessity to preserve neu- 
tral markets has further caused the extended 



188 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

assertion of our influence in the Orient, 
where we have of late been rudely awak- 
ened to the change caused by the rising 
power of Japan. Everywhere our horizon 
has been enlarged ; everywhere we are called 
upon to handle new problems both in the 
light of our own general interests and from 
the more special point of securing the pre- 
servation of the Philippines. 

The nation, conscious of its responsibili- 
ties and dangers, has in recent years de- 
veloped its means of defense. The same 
sentiment must inevitably make toward 
renovating our diplomacy as the navy's 
complement in preserving peace and safe- 
guarding over-sea interests. This does not 
signify the reversal of past traditions. We 
may preserve their spirit while infusing into 
them fresh life, enveloping what is vital 
in a form appropriate to new requirements. 
The navy would to-day cut a sorry figure 
if, because the Monitor had once proved 
so serviceable, we had never gone beyond 
it as a type for our war-ships. Yet in the 



OUR INTERNATIONAL POSITION 189 

handling of foreign affairs we have remained 
"content with a diplomatic service always 
inadequate and often positively detrimental 
to our interests." ^ We have not recognized 
in diplomacy the technique, so to speak, of 
statesmanship in the nation's foreign rela- 
tions. Having minimized its role as the act 
of international intercourse, its importance 
in securing economy of effort has been 
minimized for us. One cannot draw from 
a jar more than it contains; and diplomacy 
has hitherto occupied too minor a part in 
the national life to have been utilized as the 
instrument of strength it should be. Its 
possibilities still remain for us as virgin as 
were our forests. 

Fortunately we can start on our march 
under unparalleled auspices. Where the 
nations of the Old World have been 
obliged hitherto to rely on comparatively 
slight means, and where their success has 
depended on a high power of organized 
efficiency, we are already their equals in ca- 

* Mr. Olney, Atlantic Monthly, March, 1900, p. 289. 



190 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

pacity for organization, while our resources 
are well-nigh boundless and our possibilities 
unlimited. The possession of such national 
baggage is not without consequence. The 
fulfillment of certain duties from which we 
can neither hope nor wish to dissociate 
ourselves will in the future more and more 
be impressed upon us. "A nation which 
is at once the granary, the coal and iron 
mine, and the cotton field of the world can- 
not as formerly remain enclosed in its con- 
tinent, indifferent to what occurs in other 
parts of the globe. It is too great a parcel 
of humanity to enjoy the right of isolation. 
It feels that its power makes demands upon 
it. Its strength creates a right; this right 
turns to pretension, and this resolves itself 
into a duty to pronounce on all questions 
which the agreement of European powers 
formerly determined." * 

While statecraft is in the first instance an 
enlightened selfishness, and while we are 

* E. Boutmy, Psychologie du Peuple Amdricain, Paris, 
1902, p. 337. 



OUR INTERNATIONAL POSITION 191 

paramountly concerned in our own welfare, 
present and future, in the history of nations, 
as in the lives of individuals, occasions pre- 
sent themselves when, with little or no risk, 
the cause of humanity may be advanced. 
Without indulging in Quixotic dreams of 
redressing the evils of this world, we may 
yet look forward to exemplifying in our for- 
eign intercourse certain of the ideals which 
are at the foundation of the Republic. Our 
diplomacy must rest primarily on the solid 
basis of material interest, but it should seek 
to identify such interest so far as possible 
with that of humanity. The political legacy 
bequeathed by our forefathers is not at 
variance with this ambition. The tradi- 
tions they have handed down should rather 
ennoble and spiritualize our aim. No more 
mischievous illusion exists than the belief 
that because we are launched as a world 
power our future course must be one of 
rapacity, regardless of others' rights. The 
goal before us has in it nothing that is base, 
but likewise nothing that may not become 



192 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY 

either noble or ignoble. For better or for 
worse, a wider scope has been held out. It 
rests with us to decide what it shall be. 
But our future course affects more than our- 
selves. Our single action, supreme in one 
hemisphere, second to none in the other, 
will more than that of any other power 
influence the political ethics of the world. 
At Gettysburg, almost a half century 
ago, Lincoln immortally proclaimed before 
a divided nation the American gospel. To- 
day, when we are united, his words offer a 
reminder that the future should not find us 
unworthy of the past. The higher our aim, 
the more worthy will it be of those who in 
the past served and saved the Republic. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



lav 6 i^os 



/COPY. OB.. TO CAT. DIV. 



LIBRARY Qp 



CONGRESS 




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